moos-ros-bridge

A communication bridge between the MOOS and ROS publish-and-subscribe middleware systems.

If you use the moos-ros-bridge in your research, please cite our research paper:

@inproceedings{demarco2011implementation,
    title={An implementation of ROS on the Yellowfin autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV)},
    author={DeMarco, Kevin and West, Michael E and Collins, Thomas R},
    booktitle={OCEANS 2011},
    pages={1--7},
    year={2011},
    organization={IEEE}
}

Build Instructions

Install Dependencies

First, install MOOS as normal. Then, install some extra dependencies from your package manager:

$ sudo apt-get install librapidxml-dev

Build in a catkin workspace

1. Setup a ROS catkin workspace, if you don't have one already:

    $ source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.sh
    $ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src && cd ~/catkin_ws/
    $ catkin_make
   

2. Clone this repo into into ~/catkin_ws/src:

    $ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
    $ git clone https://github.com/SyllogismRXS/moos-ros-bridge.git
   

3. Build it:

    $ cd ~/catkin_ws
    $ catkin_make
    $ source ./devel/setup.sh
   

Run an Example

Start the MOOS Database

$ MOOSDB

In a different terminal, run a launch file that will start the "Bridge" ROS node as well as a ROS node that increments a counter in the ROS topic, "CounterFromROS," with data type, std_msgs::Int32. Note that the Bridge ROS node requires both a .moos file (bridge.moos), so that it can connect to the appropriate MOOS database, and an XML file (counters.xml), so that the Bridge can translate between ROS and MOOS data types.

$ roslaunch moos-ros-bridge counter.launch

In a new terminal, use uMS to observe the "CounterFromROS" topic being updated in MOOS:

$ uMS

Make sure HostName is LOCALHOST and Port is 9000. Click on "Connect." You should see the CounterFromROS variable incrementing.

At this point, the Bridge is also looking for changes in the "CounterFromMOOS" variable in the MOOS community. Let's monitor the variable in ROS as we change it using uMS. Open a new terminal and run the rostopic echo command:

$ rostopic echo /CounterFromMOOS

In the uMS window, CTRL+RightClick on an empty row. Enter the variable name: CounterFromMOOS. Choose NUMERIC. Enter value: 42. You should see the rostopic echo program print out the following:

data: 42

---

Run an Example from a Script

Read through the bash script at moos-ros-bridge/scripts/counter.sh for an example of how to start both the Bridge ROS node and MOOS within the same script. Run the script:

$ rosrun moos-ros-bridge counter.sh

# Type CTRL+c to exit

Bridge Configuration

The Bridge is configured using an XML file that specifies the names of ROS and MOOS topics and the associated data types. Look at moos-ros-bridge/config/counters.xml and moos-ros-bridge/config/moosrosconfig.xml for examples. In the XML file, each message consists of the following members:

moosname - the name of the moos variable

rosname - the name of the ros topic

moostype - the type of the moos variable

rostype - the type of the ros topic

direction - the direction of the data over the bridge (either toMOOS or toROS).