ROS for Beginners: Basics, Motion, and OpenCV

News and Updates.

I course have been upgraded to the latest version of ROS, ROS Noetic, with several new videos explaining the fundamental concepts of ROS with hands-on illustrations. It will also give you the required skills to later learn ROS2 and navigation stack, as presented in my two other courses.

• Oct 8, 2020: Adding a section on Turtlebot3 simulator and how to install it easily

• Oct 8, 2020: I added slides for laser scanners and also an assignment using a Turtlebot 3 robot with laser scanners on ROS Noetics

• Oct 2, 2020: update of ROS motion section with brand new tutorials and illustrations

• Sep 17, 2020: update several videos of ROS custom message and ROS services.

• Sep 11, 2020: Adding brand new lecture with high-quality videos and replace old videos on a detailed explanation of the ROS Computation Graph with a demo using the latest version of ROS Noetic.   

• Aug 22, 2020: Adding instruction for installation of ROS Noetic along with the code of the course for this distribution.

Why am I  teaching this course?

Typically, new ROS users encounter a lot of difficulties when they start programming with ROS. Although there are so many tutorials, there are a  lot of tips and practical issues that could not be easily found in tutorials and not discussed and left to the developer's luckiness. In general, although there is much documentation for ROS, several are very broad and it takes too long to grasp well the concepts. This is where this course plays a role and provides an added value by providing a focused introduction to the BASICS of ROS. The course does not only presents the basic concepts of ROS but also addresses two important fields in robotics: (1) motion, (2) perception. We will apply the general concepts of ROS in the context of robotic motion and perception. The course will provide you an opportunity to learn about OpenCV, the most powerful computer vision library, that promotes robotic perception. 

My approach is to take you STEP BY STEP through the roadmap of learning ROS so that you learn the concepts in the right order and help you build an experience from one lecture to the other.

This is a course that provides the fundamental concepts and basics of the Robot Operating System (ROS). This course intends to give beginner ROS users with a quick and focused introduction on the basics of ROS, in addition to practical tips that help them manage better their first projects with ROS in C++ and Python. In particular, developing with C++ in ROS requires special care as compared to Python to configure well the compilation and runtime environment. This is presented in a clear manner in this course. 

There are mainly three majors steps in the course:

1. ROS Basics and Foundation:  which deals with the general ROS concepts that everyone has to know, like ROS topics, Services, Messages, Nodes, ...

2. Motion in ROS: We apply the concepts learned in Step 1 to make a robot move. We will develop a different trajectory in the context of a nice example simulating a cleaning robot. In particular, we illustrate how to represent the pose (position and orientation) of a robot in ROS, and how to send a motion control message to make the robot move. We clearly demonstrate how to implement a linear motion, a rotational motion, and spiral motion and how all of these be integrated to simulate a cleaning application. This part will you the background you need to understand robot kinematics and how motion is represented in ROS.

3. Perception in ROS: I will introduce how a robot sees the environment using a camera, how the images are collected in ROS, and how they are processed in OpenCV. 

4. Arduino: you will also learn how to use Arduino boards and sensors with ROS using the ROSSERIAL Arduino interface. This will allow you to integrate any Arduino sensor and board into your robot and robotics applications.

Based on my experience, these are the most important things any new ROS user has to know to be able to go further with his own robotics project. 

I also provide some hands-on activities that allow the learner to assess his understanding and push him to practice the concepts he learned. 

My experience with ROS

I have been programming with ROS for many years both in academic and industrial projects. I am very passionate to develop a program with ROS. I have also been teaching ROS at the University and providing training programs. I am the leader of the Robotics and Internet-of-Things Lab at Prince Sultan University and also a consultant for Gaitech Robotics. I have developed many ROS packages for robots and drones. I have been leading international scientific activities around ROS, and in particular, I am the editor of three volumes of books with Springer entitled Robot Operating System, The Complete Reference. I gained a lot of experience in what difficulties new users encounter to learn ROS and this contributed to pin right to the point addressing these problems through the different lectures of the course. 

Welcome to the World of ROS.