EZ-RASSOR

The EZ-RASSOR (EZ Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot) is an inexpensive, autonomous, regolith-mining robot designed to mimic the look and abilities of NASA’s RASSOR on a smaller scale. The primary goal of the EZ-RASSOR is to provide a demonstration robot for visitors at the Kennedy Space Center. The EZ-RASSOR can:

• Rove across light-to-moderate terrain
• Collect regolith in rotating drums
• Return regolith to hoppers located away from dig sites
• Execute pre-planned routines
• Autonomously navigate around possible obstructions
• Cooperate in a swarm of other EZ-RASSORs

For more information, our wiki contains a high-level overview of the EZ-RASSOR and its many components.

POTENTIAL CONTRIBUTORS: check out the contributing guidelines and the license.

INSTALLATION PREREQUISITES

• ROS Melodic
• Python 2.7
• Pip
• rosdep
• build-essential

TYPICAL INSTALLATION

First, clone this repository with git.

git clone https://github.com/FlaSpaceInst/EZ-RASSOR.git
cd EZ-RASSOR

Then, let the develop.sh script do the heavy lifting! On Ubuntu Xenial or Ubuntu Bionic, creating a catkin workspace and building all packages is achieved with these commands:

# By default, all ROS packages in the *packages* folder will be installed
sh develop.sh setup
sh develop.sh link
sh develop.sh resolve
sh develop.sh build
sh develop.sh install
** RESTART TERMINAL **

If you encounter Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code..., try to fix the broken install with the following command, then rerun the original command:

sudo apt --fix-broken install
** RERUN ORIGINAL COMMAND **

Everything's installed now! Proceed to the usage section.

CUSTOMIZED INSTALLATION

If you want to install specific EZ-RASSOR packages, you can use the same develop.sh script:

Make sure you have already run the setup command at least once:

sh develop.sh setup

Then, you can call the relink function and use -o to pass in the package name(s) you would like to install:

sh develop.sh relink -o ezrassor_sim_control ezrassor_sim_description ezrassor_sim_gazebo
sh develop.sh build
sh develop.sh install

Alternatively, you can also call the relink function and use the -e flag to make the script install all but the specified package(s):

sh develop.sh relink -e ezrassor_swarm_control

USAGE

The EZ-RASSOR is controlled via a collection of launch files. These files contain lists of commands that start up the robot's systems and the simulation environment. They are read, understood, and executed by a core ROS utility called roslaunch, whose general syntax is as follows:

roslaunch <package> <launch file> [arguments...]

Each launch file is located in one of our packages, and the most important launch files are located in the ezrassor_launcher package. To learn more about a specific launch file, visit that launch file's package's wiki page (via the navigation menu on the right). Here are some example commands that show launch files in action:

# Launch the simulation with a single robot controlled by the mobile app.
roslaunch ezrassor_launcher configurable_simulation.launch control_methods:=app

# Launch the simulation with a single robot controlled by an autonomous loop.
roslaunch ezrassor_launcher configurable_simulation.launch control_methods:=autonomy

# Launch the simulation with two robots, both controlled by gamepads, on the moon.
roslaunch ezrassor_launcher configurable_simulation.launch \
    control_methods:=gamepad \
    world:=moon \
    robot_count:=2 \
    joysticks:="0 1" \
    spawn_x_coords:="-1 1" \
    spawn_y_coords:="1 -1"

# Launch the communication system in dual mode: manual and autonomous control together.
roslaunch ezrassor_launcher configurable_communication.launch control_methods:="app gamepad autonomy"

Please read the wiki page for the ezrassor_launcher to learn more about what the main launch files can do.

AUTHORS

EZ-RASSOR 1.0 Team

• Sean Rapp
• Ron Marrero
• Tiger Sachse
• Tyler Duncan
• Samuel Lewis
• Harrison Black
• Camilo Lozano
• Chris Taliaferro
• Cameron Taylor
• Lucas Gonzalez

EZ-RASSOR 2.0 (GPS-Denied Autonomous Navigation) Team

• Jordan Albury
• Shelby Basco
• John Hacker
• Michael Jimenez
• Scott Scalera

EZ-RASSOR 2.0 (Swarm Control & Management) Team

• Daniel Silva
• Chin Winn
• Martin Power
• Daniel Simoes
• Autumn Esponda

EZ-RASSOR 3.0 (Swarm Build Pad) Team

• Hung Nguyen
• Coy Torreblanca
• Stanley Minervini
• Richard Malcolm
• Camry Artalona

CITATION

Please include the following citation when using EZRASSOR for a paper:

@misc{ezrassor_2021,
  author = {EZRASSOR Team},
  title = {EZRASSOR},
  year = {2021},
  publisher = {GitHub},
  journal = {GitHub repository},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/FlaSpaceInst/EZ-RASSOR}}
}