Underwater Vehicle & Manipulator Simulator and Hardware Framework

A ros2_control framework for simulating and interfacing with the BlueROV Heavy and Reach Alpha 5 manipulator.

Features

• Realistic Dynamics: Close to real simulation of underwater vehicle and manipulator behavior.
• Multi-Agent Support: Simulate multiple agents in a shared environment.
• Hardware-in-the-Loop Support: Interface with real blueROV heavy robot, including A50 DVL and reach alpha 5 manipulator.
• Internal Kalman Filter: Implements sensor fusion for robust state estimate.

Kinematics & Dynamics

This project derives its kinematic and dynamic models from diff_uv and diff_uvms, which provides the essential dynamic matrices used for control, stability analysis, and model identification.

Setup

Prerequisites

1. Install ROS2:
   Follow the ROS2 Installation Guide.

2. Ensure $ROS_DISTRO is Set:
   Confirm that the environment variable $ROS_DISTRO is correctly set:

   echo $ROS_DISTRO
   

If not, set it to your ROS2 distribution (e.g., humble):

   export ROS_DISTRO=humble
   

1. Install Required Dependencies:
   Use your package manager to install dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install git-lfs \
       ros-$ROS_DISTRO-hardware-interface ros-$ROS_DISTRO-xacro \
       ros-$ROS_DISTRO-controller-manager ros-$ROS_DISTRO-joint-state-broadcaster \
       ros-$ROS_DISTRO-joint-state-publisher-gui ros-$ROS_DISTRO-forward-command-controller \
       ros-$ROS_DISTRO-ros2-control ros-$ROS_DISTRO-mavros ros-$ROS_DISTRO-mavros-msgs \
       ros-$ROS_DISTRO-nav2-msgs ros-$ROS_DISTRO-force-torque-sensor-broadcaster ros-$ROS_DISTRO-tf-transformations
   

1. Install CasADi:
   Follow the CasADi Installation Instructions.

Installation Steps

1. Clone the Repository:
   In your ROS2 workspace’s src directory, clone the project:

   cd /absolute/path/to/your_ros2_workspace/src
   git clone https://github.com/edxmorgan/uvms-simulator.git
   vcs import < uvms-simulator/dependency_repos.repos
   

1. Install Dependencies:
   From the root of your workspace, install any missing dependencies:

   cd /absolute/path/to/your_ros2_workspace
   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
   

1. Build the Workspace:
   Compile the project:

   colcon build
   

1. Source the Setup File:
   Update your environment:

   source install/setup.bash
   

Replace /absolute/path/to/your_ros2_workspace with the actual absolute path to your ROS2 workspace.

Documentation & Use Cases

• User Guide: User Documentation
• HIL Setup: Hardware-in-the-Loop Instructions
• Interactive Control: For Interactive, manual control and coverage examples, see uvms_simlab.

Citation

Resources & Contributing

• ROS Control
• Reach Robotics SDK
• Blue Robotics

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.