kangaroo_x2_driver

ROS driver for Kangaroo X2 motor driver board

Takes a clean copy of the Kangaroo Arduino library provided by Dimension Engineering, and provides a reimplementation of Arduino.h in order to connect to the X2 through a linux serial port instead of Arduino serial.

The intention is to use this to control the X2 from a Raspberry Pi through an FTDI USB-serial driver.

Kangaroo X2 Arduino library: https://www.dimensionengineering.com/info/arduino

Test the connection to the motor driver:

rosrun kangaroo_x2_driver SpeedControlExample

(this will run motor 1 back and forward)

Create separate controllers for motors 1 and 2:

roslaunch kangaroo_x2_driver independent_speed_control.launch

The controllers listen for speed commands of type std_msgs/Float64 on topics:

/motor_1_controller/command
/motor_2_controller/command

Differential drive control:

roslaunch kangaroo_x2_driver diff_drive_control.launch

The differential-drive controller will listen for twist velocity commands published to topic /diff_drive_controller/cmd_vel.

Kangaroo Setup

Ensure the kangaroo board is configured for independent mode (dip-switch 4 is ON) and digital input (dip-switch 1 is ON). Also ensure the board has been tuned with these settings.