Install

To install, you will first need to install the dependencies

1. Install ROS (we recommend ROS Melodic on Ubuntu 18.04)
2. Install the hebi_cpp_api ROS package: $ sudo apt install ros-melodic-hebi-cpp-api

Now, checkout the code into a new ROS workspace:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir -p daisy_workspace/src
$ cd daisy_workspace/src
$ git clone https://github.com/HebiRobotics/hebi-ros-daisy
$ cd ../..

Finally, compile and install:

$ cd ~/daisy_workspace
$ catkin_make
$ catkin_make install

Running

To launch the program, run the daisy.launch file in the hebi-ros-daisy package.

The robot will move into a starting stance position. If one or more of the robot's legs do not move, check that the LEDs are not blinking yellow on any leg; this indicates that the leg is outside of a safe starting range, and should be moved back into range before continuing (e.g., by pulling up Scope and querying the current position).

The launch file also runs a "Controller" interface node that begins to search for a Mobile IO app on the network, with family "Daisy" and name "mobileIO". Once this is found, the Mobile IO interface will be configured for controlling Daisy. This Mobile IO app should be connected to the robot's wireless network (default PW is hebi1234).

On the controller, you can use the following controls:

• B1: toggle stance mode (on) or step mode (off)
• B8: quit
• A1/A2: rotate (pitch forward/back only works in "stance" mode
• A3: move up/down
• A7/A8: shift position in x/y

You can also use ROS messages to control the hexapod:

• Velocity Commands

  • Channel: /velocity_command
  • Message: geometry_msgs::Twist
  • Purpose: linear and angular velocity commands

• Stance/Step toggle

  • Channel: /mode_select
  • Message: std_msgs::Bool
  • Purpose: "true" to enter stance mode, "false" to enter step mode.

Configuring Auto-start

You can set up the code to run automatically at bootup. This is done with the robot_upstart ROS package.

First, install the robot_upstart ROS package:

$ sudo apt install ros-melodic-robot-upstart

Then set up the script to run the daisy launch file at bootup:

$ cd ~/daisy_workspace
$ source devel/setup.sh
$ rosrun robot_upstart install hebi-ros-daisy/launch/daisy.launch

(To uninstall this startup script later, you can call call rosrun robot_upstart uninstall hebi-ros-daisy)

We have found that for this to work on bootup on ROS Melodic on Ubuntu 18.04, you will need to apply this patch

In particular, open /lib/systemd/system/hebi-ros-daisy.service (you will need root access), and add the following lines to the first section:

After=network.target
Wants=network.target
After=network-online.target
Wants=network-online.target

Then run the following:

$ sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager-wait-online.service
$ sudo systemctl enable systemd-networkd-wait-online.service

You can start/stop this manually by calling:

$ sudo service hebi-ros-daisy start
$ sudo service hebi-ros-daisy stop

To debug, we found it is best to use journalctl (the instructions on the robot_upstart documentation are outdated):

$ sudo journalctl | hebi-ros-daisy