Duatic Control

Compact ros2_control integration for Duatic robots.

Overview

• The URDF plugin (urdf/plugins.urdf.xacro) expects a full path to a controllers YAML file.
• That YAML must contain the controller_manager and controller node parameter mappings using the top-level wildcard /**: so the ros2_control plugin can load controllers on startup.

Quick usage

• Ensure a config file exists and pass its absolute path to the launch/spawn process that loads the URDF plugin.

Example:

ros2 launch duatic_control control.launch.py \
  namespace:="robot1" \
  controllers_file:="/full/path/to/controllers.yaml"

Config file format

• File must be valid YAML.
• Top-level must use /**: to scope parameters for controller_manager and named controllers.
• Each controller definition can include:
  • type: (required) The controller plugin type (e.g., joint_state_broadcaster/JointStateBroadcaster).
  • state: (optional) Activation status on startup. Use active (default) or inactive.
  • remappings: (optional) A dictionary of topic remappings in the format topic_name: remapped_topic_name.

Example:

/**:
  controller_manager:
    ros__parameters:
      update_rate: 100
      joint_state_broadcaster:
        type: joint_state_broadcaster/JointStateBroadcaster
        state: active
      mecanum_drive_controller:
        type: mecanum_drive_controller/MecanumDriveController
        state: active
        remappings:
          mecanum_drive_controller/reference: cmd_vel
      gravity_compensation_controller_arm_right:
        type: dynaarm_controllers/GravityCompensationController
        state: inactive

  mecanum_drive_controller:
    ros__parameters:
      reference_timeout: 0.7
      front_left_wheel_command_joint_name: "joint_wheel1"
      front_right_wheel_command_joint_name: "joint_wheel2"
      rear_right_wheel_command_joint_name: "joint_wheel3"
      rear_left_wheel_command_joint_name: "joint_wheel4"
      kinematics:
        wheels_radius: 0.1015
        sum_of_robot_center_projection_on_X_Y_axis: 0.595
      enable_odom_tf: false
      base_frame_id: "base_link"

URDF plugin (for usage with Gazebo Sim)

• Macro parameters: namespace, controllers_file (absolute path required).
• The plugin reads the config file and injects it into the ros2_control controller_manager on spawn, the config file must be the same that's passed to the control.launch.py file.

Example:

<xacro:include filename="$(find duatic_control)/urdf/plugins.urdf.xacro" />
<xacro:control namespace="$(arg namespace)" controllers_file="$(find platform_bringup)/config/controllers.yaml"/>

Troubleshooting

• If controllers don't load: validate YAML syntax, ensure /**: is present, and confirm the launch passes an absolute path to the controllers file.