CHANGELOG.md

0.6.1

General

• Fixed the issue affecting the CPC sensor and the custom battery plugin when loaded

0.6.0

General

• Migration to ROS 2 Foxy
• Added support for Gazebo 11
• Files parsed by Xacro are now directly output as a string and loaded as a node parameter in the various launch files
• Known issue: teleop shows unexpected behaviour with the trajectory control package's controllers, as well as the rov_mb_sm controller / rov_nl_pid_controller
• Known issue: the CPC sensor and the custom battery plugins crash when loaded
• Known issue: DVL and camera sensor won't show in Rviz
• Known issue: The subprocess based sim time request fails when the plankton sim time node is launched within the same launch file. A simple fix is to start the sim time node first and separately

uuv_thruster_manager

• [thruster_manager.py] The thruster manager now gets and parse the urdf robot description from a topic instead of a file

0.5.3

General

• Fixed a problem where the simulated time request was not correctly handled while using subprocess and failed
• Fixed many issues occuring in the trajectory control and control utils
• Known issues: teleop shows unexpected behaviour with the trajectory control package's controllers, as well as the rov_mb_sm controller / rov_nl_pid_controller when station is keeping on.
• Known issues: the CPC sensor and the custom battery plugins crash when loaded
• Increased the timeout while waiting for the tf transforms in the thruster_manager
• Reverted yaml format for file-based waypoints to plain old yaml as the values are not read as ROS parameters

plankton_utils

• Increased the default timeout for sim time request to 10s

uuv_control_utils

• [start_circular_trajectory.launch] Changed incorrect arg name starting_time

uuv_thruster_manager

• Increased the default timeout while waiting for tf transforms to 10s

0.5.2

uuv_sensor_ros_plugins

• Updated deprecated remapping syntax warnings occuring in URDF files

0.5.1

General

• Fixed incorrect dependencies in package.xml

uuv_assistants

• [publish_vehicle_footprint, unpause_simulation] Syntax error fixes

uuv_control_utils

• Typo in some launch files
• Fixed the crashes occuring in the disturbance services files
• [apply_link_wrench.launch] Changed file name from apply_body_wrench for consistency. A param was added to change the service namespace
• [apply_link_wrench.py] Previously, the user was not informed when a service request failed
• [set_thruster_output_efficiency] Fixed an incorrect loop condition

uuv_trajectory_control

• [dp_pid_controller_base] Added a missing return instruction

uuv_gazebo_ros_plugins

• [test files] A misleading function was renamed

uuv_teleop

• [finned_uuv_teleop, vehicle_keyboard_teleop, vehicle_teleop] Sim time was not handled correctly

uuv_world_ros_plugins

• [GaussMarkovProcess] Changed model validity criterion from min must be < max to min must be <= max

0.5.0

General

• General migration of UUV simulator to ROS 2 Eloquent
• Gazebo plugins now instantiate 1 ROS node per plugin
• Parameters are auto declared in each node
• Sim time: current solution implies that each Plankton node asks at startup for the use or not of use_sim_time to a global node created when initializing gazebo
• Some occurrences can remain, but tf_prefix is not used anymore
• The provided Gazebo world files were modified to load the gazebo_ros_state plugin. The gazebo_ros_force_system plugin is also loaded in the launch files initializing gazebo
• The official Gazebo ros plugins live in their own namespace /gazebo

Missing from ROS 1

• Currently removed the ability for nodes to respawn if they were parameterized in this way in the launch file
• Currently removed the ability to stop the ROS 2 system if a node tagged as required in the launch file terminates
• Currently not migrated UnderwaterCamera and sonar_image sensor plugins
• The assistant tools to create new robots are not ported yet
• Model_spawner has not been ported yet and was replaced with the default entity_spawner of gazebo

More detailed information about per package changes

Plankton_utils

• New utility package (time conversions, sim time handling and helper functions to manipulate parameters more easily)

uuv_assistants

• Updated tf to tf2
• Migrated launch files to Eloquent
• Files in the template directory were not migrated
• [message_to_tf] Removed multicallback ability
• [publish_footprints] is not functional and needs a rework
• [publish_world_models] Changed service name from get_model_state to get_entity_state
• [set_simulation_timer.launch] has currently no effect as the launch file is not able to kill the simulation

uuv_auv_control_allocator

• [actuator_manager] Renamed topic /${namespace}/${topic_prefix}/${id}/${topic_suffix} to /${namespace}/${topic_prefix}/id_${id}/${topic_suffix} according to ROS 2 naming convention.

uuv_cascaded_pids

• Replaced dynamic reconfigure from ROS 1 with ROS 2 integrated system. Parameters can be changed using the command line interface ros2 param get / set
• Changed python file naming convention to be consistent

uuv_control_msgs

• [GetMBSMControllerParams, SetMBSMControllerParams] Changed field lambda as it is a reserved keyword in Python
• [GetPIDParams, SetPIDParams, SetSMControllerParams, GetSMControllerParams] Turned field names to lowercase names as it is now a required convention

uuv_control_utils

• Changed yaml syntax for the files used in disturbance_manager.py and send_waypoints.py due to ROS 2 limitations with sequences. Each disturbance now lives in a namespace d${X}, where ${X} is the number of the disturbance. Each waypoint now lives in a namespace wp${X} where ${X} is the number of the waypoint. Two example files are provided.
• [apply_link_wrench] The file was renamed from apply_body_wrench to reflect the name change of the Gazebo ros service . The service name and message type were modified to apply_link_wrench and ApplyLinkWrench respectively, according to (https://github.com/ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs/wiki/ROS-2-Migration:-Body-Wrench-and-Joint-Effort)
• [disturbance_manager, set_truster_output_efficiency, set_thruster_state] Changed the topic prefix from /${ns}/thruster/${x}/ (with ${x} a numeric id) to /${ns}/thruster/id_${x} due to ROS 2 naming conventions.

uuv_thruster_manager

• All of the test files have been migrated to the python way.
• [thruster_manager] Changed topic name in the same way as it is in uuv_control_utils
• [thruster_manager] Replaced tf occurrences with tf2
• [thruster_manager] Stripped first “/” in tf2 frames
• [thruster_manager, thruster_allocator] The classes now initialize asynchronously. ready flag can be used to know if the initialization is done.
• [yaml files] Migrated the syntax to ROS 2 and turned the TAM matrix to a 1D list which will be further converted in numpy matrix in the thruster_allocator code due to ROS 2 yaml limitations.
• [test_thruster_manager_proportional_correct] Changed topic name in the same way as it is in uuv_control_utils

uuv_trajectory_control

• Replaced tf with tf2
• [auv_geometric_tracking_controller] Changed the topic prefix from /${ns}/thruster/${x}/ (with ${x} a numeric id) to /${ns}/thruster/id_${x} and similarly for fin instead of thruster, due to ROS 2 naming conventions .

uuv_descriptions

• Due to several limitations with the integration of xacro in the XML frontend, launch files were rewritten in python
• [xacro files]: Changed libunderwater_ros_plugin plugin name from uuv_plugin to $(arg namespace)_uuv_plugin
• [launch files]: Replaced spawn_model.py with Gazebo provided spawn_entity.py
• [spawn_model] The file was not migrated

uuv_gazebo

• The package was left unchanged and is not usable.

uuv_gazebo_plugins

• [FinPlugin] Changed the topic prefix from /${ns}/fin/${x}/ (with ${x} a numeric id) to /${ns}/fin/id_${x} due to ROS 2 naming conventions
• [FinPlugin] TopicPrefix variable does no longer have the final “/”
• [ThrusterPlugin] Changed the topic prefix from /${ns}/thruster/${x}/ (with ${x} a numeric id) to /${ns}/thruster/id_${x} due to ROS 2 naming conventions
• [test_thrusters] Changed the topic prefix from /${ns}/fin/${x}/ (with ${x} a numeric id) to /${ns}/fin/id_${x} due to ROS 2 naming conventions

uuv_gazebo_ros_plugins

• Removed Boost dependency
• Test files have been migrated to the python way.
• [battery_snippets, misc] Added <ros><namespace/></ros> element to enforce the namespace of the created ROS node under Gazebo
• [misc] Added in the uuv_joint_state_publisher element to enforce the namespace of the created ROS node under Gazebo
• [CustomBatteryConsumerROSPlugin, FinROSPlugin, UnderwaterObjectROSPlugin, ThrusterROSPlugin] The node does not have namespace
• [JointStatePublisher, LinearBatteryROSPlugin] The node is started with the provided namespace in the corresponding SDF file.

uuv_gazebo_worlds

• [launch files] The Plankton sim time node is started with every launch file
• [launch files] Gazebo is started with the namespace /gazebo
• [launch files] The gazebo_ros_force_system plugin is also loaded in the launch files initializing gazebo
• [world files] The Gazebo world files were modified to load the gazebo_ros_state plugin.

uuv_sensor_plugins

• Removed Boost dependency
• All nodes are started with the provided namespace in the corresponding SDF file.
• [xacro files] Replaced <robot_namespace> with <ros><namespace></namespace></ros>
• [camera_snippets] Migrated SDF format according to (https://github.com/ros-simulation/gazebo_ros_pkgs/wiki/ROS-2-Migration:-Camera)
• [gazebo_ros_image_sonar, UnderwaterCameraROSPlugin] These sensors have not been migrated yet

uuv_world_ros_plugins

• [UnderwaterCurrentROSPlugins] The node is started with the namespace given in the plugin’s tag namespace in the SDF.

uuv_teleop

• [finned_uuv_teleop.py] Changed fin topic name from ${fin_topic_prefix}/${x}/${fin_topic_suffix} to ${fin_topic_prefix}/id_${x}/${fin_topic_suffix}
• [finned_uuv_teleop.launch] Change variable thruster_topic from thrusters/0/input to thrusters/id_0/input