TapeWorm

This repository contains the code for the new autonomose underwater robot tentitivly named TapeWorm. The express purpose of this code is to be better than the code for last competition while upgrading major dependancies, such as Python versions and ROS versions.

Development

Place desired commands to run the code in run.sh. catkin_ws is located in the ~ directory which is /root for this container.

Do not develop within the container as your changes will not be saved. To install a dependency please add it to the Dockerfile.

Docker

To run you must have the Docker Engine installed an NVIDIA Jetson. This can run on any device so long as the path to the GPIO is changed for RUN_OPTS in build.sh

To run you must use a bash terminal. For Windows you can use GitBash.

Build the Docker Container

sudo bash build.sh <name> or ./build.sh <name> Replace <name> with the desired name of the container. The script will prompt to delete a container if an existing one is found.

Run the Docker Container

sudo bash run.sh <name> or ./run.sh <name> Replace <name> with the desired name of the container.

Using The Docker Container

Instructions on how to run and launch ros nodes and scripts will be located inside run.sh, build.sh will use the dockerfile to create and run the container

Running with ROS

Before you run anything with ros you need to have sourced ros this is usually done with the command source XXXX

Steps to run ROS

1. Source ROS into system
2. cd catkin_workspace directory
3. catkin_make
4. source devel/setup.bash
5. rosrun 'package_name' 'python_file'.py

Common Problems

• ROS is not sourced roscore will not run

• catkin_make fails because you are missing a dependency

• catkin_make fails because you did not configure CMakeLists

• Python files are not executables

• Check that I2C address is correct

• All files should be run with python3 as the interpreter

• Types for launch files are Very important

At step 2 you should see a directory with the following structure

catkin_workspace
|___
    src
    |___
        CMakeLists.txt
        'package_name'/
        |___
            CMakeLists
            package.xml
            src/
            |___
                **python files**
            scripts/
            |___
                **python files**

Documentation Practices

Catkin Modules

All nodes in Catkin Workspace must have the following documentation added at the head of the file. White Space is important here!

'''

"Control System: eg. ROS or ROS2"

Node: "Name"
Publishes: 
    "Topics each on own line"
Subscribes:
    "Topics each on own line"

Maintainer: "Name"

'''

Note: The maintainer is not just the person writing this code but is also the person who all questions should be refered to.

An optional but highly encouraged additional piece of documentation to add to each file is a short addendum to the above segment explaining what and why the node exists.

'''

This Node functions to do X

This Node is here to break out the behavoirs of X system into multiple nodes.

'''

Documentation Builder

Documentation will be built with Sphinx this requires that there be a second file system 'Documentation' which is compiled into docs.

All code in 'Generated/' is automatically grabbed by 'Generate_docs.sh' do not edit here all changes can be overwritten.

History

The starter code in this repository was developed for Jelly2, the sub for 23-24 SURF and 2024 Robosub.

Why Docker?

It may not be evident why we chose to dockerize our ROS system even though a Nvidia Jetson is still required. However it proved very usefull when at competition one of the SSDs was non-operable. Additionally docker in theory allows us to move over a Raspberry pi 5 easily.

Async Control System

The choice to not use a time interupt based system was made because it seemed to complicate the motor control unnessisarily and introduce the consideration of where the submarine was when considering tasks. The alternative was to disregard position and just deal with velocity and change in position. For example you don't care about where a bouy is just that you are in a constant poisition relative to it.

Acknoledgement of Contributions

Many helped create this code for the submarine for competition, and their contributions are reflected on the GitHub page. Many also played pivotal roles in the progress seen in this code, and while not contributing directly to the code, they make it possible to continue the work we have done and are continuing to do. This blurb serves as a reminder of the hours of work put into this team and as a thank you to those working on every aspect of this project seen or not.