spot_driver

The Spot driver contains all of the necessary topics, services, and actions for controlling Spot over ROS 2. To launch the driver, run the following command, with the appropriate launch arguments and/or config file that are discussed below.

ros2 launch spot_driver spot_driver.launch.py [config_file:=<path/to/config.yaml>] [spot_name:=<Spot Name>] [tf_prefix:=<TF Frame Prefix>] [launch_rviz:=<True|False>] [launch_image_publishers:=<True|False>] [publish_point_clouds:=<True|False>] [uncompress_images:=<True|False>] [publish_compressed_images:=<True|False>] [stitch_front_images:=<True|False>]

Configuration

The Spot login data hostname, username and password can be specified either as ROS parameters or as environment variables. If using ROS parameters, see spot_driver/config/spot_ros_example.yaml for an example of what your file could look like, and pass this to the driver as a launch argument with config_file:=path/to/config.yaml. If using environment variables, define BOSDYN_CLIENT_USERNAME, BOSDYN_CLIENT_PASSWORD, and SPOT_IP.

Namespacing

By default, the driver is launched in the global namespace. To avoid this, it is recommended to either launch the driver with the launch argument spot_name:=<Spot Name> or update the spot_name parameter in your config file (a specified launch argument will override the config file parameter). This will place all of the nodes, topics, services, and actions provided by the driver in the <Spot Name> namespace.

By default, it will also prefix all of the TF frames and joints of the robot with <Spot Name>. If you want to change this behavior and instead use a custom prefix <TF Frame Prefix> for all frames in the TF tree, either launch the driver with the launch argument tf_prefix:=<TF Frame Prefix> or update the frame_prefix parameter in your config file (a specified launch argument will override the config file parameter). If you use the config file parameter frame_prefix, you can disable prefixing altogether by setting it to an empty string.

Frames

Background information about Spot’s frames from Boston Dynamics can be found here. By default, the Spot driver will place the “odom” frame as the root of the TF tree. This can be changed by setting the tf_root parameter in your config file to either “vision” or “body” (value must be given without a prefix). The Spot driver will also publish odometry topics with respect to the “odom” frame by default. If you wish to change this to “vision”, update the preferred_odom_frame parameter in your config file (value must be given without a prefix).

Simple Robot Commands

Many simple robot commands can be called as services from the command line once the driver is running. For example:

• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/sit std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/stand std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/undock std_srvs/srv/Trigger

If your Spot has an arm, some additional helpful services are exposed:

• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/arm_stow std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/arm_unstow std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/arm_carry std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/open_gripper std_srvs/srv/Trigger
• ros2 service call /<Robot Name>/close_gripper std_srvs/srv/Trigger

More Complex Robot Commands

The full list of interfaces provided by the driver can be explored via ros2 topic list, ros2 service list, and ros2 action list. For more information about the custom message types used in this package, run ros2 interface show <interface_type>. More details can also be found on the spot_ros2 wiki.

Images

Perception data from Spot is handled through the spot_image_publishers.launch.py launchfile, which is launched by default from the driver. If you want to only view images from Spot, without bringing up any of the nodes to control the robot, you can also choose to run this launchfile independently.

By default, the driver will publish RGB images as well as depth maps from the frontleft, frontright, left, right, and back cameras on Spot (plus hand if your Spot has an arm). You can customize the cameras that are streamed from by adding the cameras_used parameter to your config yaml. (For example, to stream from only the front left and front right cameras, you can add cameras_used: ["frontleft", "frontright"]). Additionally, if your Spot has greyscale cameras, you will need to set rgb_cameras: False in your configuration YAML file, or you will not receive any image data.

By default, the driver does not publish point clouds. To enable this, launch the driver with publish_point_clouds:=True.

The driver can publish both compressed images (under /<Robot Name>/camera/<camera location>/compressed) and uncompressed images (under /<Robot Name>/camera/<camera location>/image). By default, it will only publish the uncompressed images. You can turn (un)compressed images on/off by launching the driver with the flags uncompress_images:=<True|False> and publish_compressed_images:=<True|False>.

The driver also has the option to publish a stitched image created from Spot’s front left and front right cameras (similar to what is seen on the tablet). If you wish to enable this, launch the driver with stitch_front_images:=True, and the image will be published under /<Robot Name>/camera/frontmiddle_virtual/image. In order to receive meaningful stitched images, you will have to specify the parameters virtual_camera_intrinsics, virtual_camera_projection_plane, virtual_camera_plane_distance, and stitched_image_row_padding (see spot_driver/config/spot_ros_example.yaml for some default values).

NOTE:
If your image publishing rate is very slow, you can try

• connecting to your robot via ethernet cable
• exporting a custom DDS profile we have provided by running the following in the same terminal your driver will run in, or adding to your .bashrc:

export=FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=<path_to_file>/custom_dds_profile.xml

Calibration

A calibration procedure for the hand camera is provided by this package. For more information on how to run this, refer to EyeInHandCalibration.md