Unity Robotics Hub: The Spot Robot Controlled Using ROS

[@bryceikeda7782]

I've updated the repository ( github.com/bryceikeda/SpotTutorial.git ) with clearer directions explaining how to get the project running.

[@camilomedina8029]

Hi Bryce, First of all thank you for this awesome video. It makes me very happy to see that someone else is working with this amazing package. I have also been exploring this package with the Panda arm. One question, if I saw correctly, you disable all collisions (mesh collider) which means that spot in Unity is not affected by physics. So in Unity spot can only be visualized.

[@bryceikeda7782]

Hi Camilo, glad you liked the video! Regarding your question, I only disabled the collisions where the spot hip joints meet the body. This way the legs don't pop off. The rest of the robot does have collisions enabled which is why it can walk on the plane. It can also still run into objects if there were something placed in its walking path.

[@camilomedina8029]

@@bryceikeda7782 Ah, okay, I guess I didn't realize that. Now it makes sense for me. You think it is possible to control Spot from Unity, the same way it is controlled from ROS?

[@bryceikeda7782]

Yup! That’s what this video is about. If you watch the clip at the end it demonstrates the robot being controlled from ROS. However the movement isn’t as natural yet. Check the updated description for a couple more details.

[@ryangoh568]

@@bryceikeda7782 I think what Camilo meant was possibly using keyboard input, etc to control the robot within Unity?

[@bryceikeda7782]

​@@ryangoh568 Yeah, I think this wasn't clear in the video sorry about that. The last clip in the video shows me using github.com/SoftServeSAG/spot_simulation/tree/spot_control to control the robot using ROS and my keyboard. Basically from 6:11 onward. Also, check out the edit I added to the description if you try this route.

[@tejasps8931]

Hi , where can we find unity_data_conversion package? Also, were you able to fix the forward movement?

[@bryceikeda7782]

The repo doesn't actually need it anymore. I saw that I still reference it in the README so just removed that line.

[@tejasps8931]

@@bryceikeda7782 ok, thanks. Were you able to fix forward motion? It doesn’t seem to work.

[@bryceikeda7782]

@@tejasps8931 Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to work on that since creating the repo. We ended up not needing to have robot move around the scene in our work.

[@thebrokeskill]

how do i do this without ROS?

[@YilongChen-ib6ow]

Hi Bryce, thanks very much for your video, I learned a lot from it. Is there still spot controller and spot controller input file in your project? I can not find them. Thanks!

[@bryceikeda7782]

Hi @Yilong, not anymore! I realized it was unnecessary so I removed them. Those scripts did basically what is being done in UpdateJointAngle(double cmd, int joint) in the SpotJointSubscriber.cs file.

[@ryangoh568]

Hi Bryce, With the teleop.launch, how did u get it to walk? Which key did u press for it

[@bryceikeda7782]

It should pop up on the screen when it starts to work. You can use the i key to go forward and , to go backward. Left, right, diagonal and stop are the other keys around that group.

[@ryangoh568]

@@bryceikeda7782 Oh i see, because my robot seems to be able to go up & down, left & right, but just does not walk

[@bryceikeda7782]

@@ryangoh568 Yeah the behavior of the Spot will depend on the values of the robot stiffness and damping. It will also depend on the spot_control scripts that seem to only work well if it is running on a dedicated linux machine rather than a VM.