Autonomous A.I. Robot Navigation Setup & Demo

It's part 2 of my Really Useful Robot project. This time we're setting up ROS on the robot so it can map and navigate it's environment using the laser scanner. I'm using the ROS navigation stack, but this is dependent on having the Odometry set up properly which is where the main focus of this video is. Hardware includes an NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX, RP Lidar A2, ODrive 3.6 + brushless motors and 8192 CPR encoders, Teensy 4.1. With thanks to:

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HARDWARE/SOFTWARE

Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects:

XROBOTS

Former toy designer, current YouTube maker and general robotics, electrical and mechanical engineer, I’m a fan of doing it yourself and innovation by trial and error. My channel is where I share some of my useful and not-so-useful inventions, designs and maker advice. Iron Man is my go-to cosplay, and 3D printing can solve most issues - broken bolts, missing parts, world hunger, you name it.

XRobots is the community around my content where you can get in touch, share tips and advice, and more build FAQs, schematics and designs are also available.

[Paul-rsgd]

Another good reason for having an Arduino microcontroller between the Jetson and the motors is that a microcontroller is much more reliable than a computer with an O/S. You can wire the Arduino to a few bump sensors, and use its watchdog timer, so that it can safely halt the robot if it hits anything or if the Jetson stops communicating. I have done this on all my robots as the higher level functions are more prone to fail.

[TheLoneGingerShow]

With each new episode I get more and more in over my head.
You have slowly gone from a mechanical genius to a full-stack-integrated mad man...

As always, thank you for sharing James!
-J

[devanshgarg]

I recommend you to make a tutorial series on ros for us

[TradieTrev]

Really appreciate your open source efforts James!

[adarshgouda]

Your content delivery is simply brilliant. Each video is packed with a plethora of information.

[RydenTTV]

I have no idea what you are talking about most of the time but really enjoy your content.

[deresemarc]

Awesome video. Wrapping the whole stack from From the micro controller to path planning, what a ride !

[kevinmcaleer]

Awesome build - this reminds me of that robot
You had a couple of years ago, with the PC inside.

[ZaidPirwani]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH - this part 2 and the part 1 are very very helpful videos for anyone starting with ROS - cause even when you have started there is a good enough learning curve and there are many pits where one can get stuck.

I hope you add IMU as well in future and integrate that as well in the odom messages.

THANKS.

[viniciusfriasaleite]

I can't wait to see the robotdogs making map and navigation!!!

[JohnDlugosz]

12:15 I can only imagine that you programmed the vision system with your socks. Imagine it showing "my master" and boxing your foot when that sock comes into view.

[airsoftbeast]

Took a class in university where we learned the fundamental algorithms behind SLAM: path planning methods and mapping, and Kalman/particle filtering for localization. if you have the time, I highly recommend building it out from the ground-up, you learn so much about the software side without using ROS! My favorite part? You can write it all in python 😆

[Jynxx_]

Love the USB breakout board mount on the orange/blue bot. Finally, a use for those damn purge blocks! LOL

[WistrelChianti]

Very impressive. So many names and acronyms haha. You're doing a good job of convincing me that I was right to avoid ROS as long as I can get away with (although I'll have to go there eventually for one project). Still, I've gone from knowing nothing about it (other than "it's complicated") to knowing at least something about how it does stuff, which is good so thanks! I can see why it has it's place in the world, as clearly stuff can get complex fast and everyone would end up reinventing the wheel if it didn't exist.

[jtool]

In move_base, you can disable it being allowed to drive backwards, since your robot can't see backwards properly, I would recommend doing so.

[SomeOne-hwjw]

marketing idea => put your humanoid robot on top of the base and have it do some tricks (rolling around while holding a service tray like a waiter, opening doors, using facial recognition to talk to you etc..)
Great Buzz potential!

[jasoncreech]

Some people wish for boats or big houses if they hit the lottery, but I wish I could work together on a tracked humanoid project together with you. Thanks for sharing all your work with us.

[ianoyama]

When you said that it will be able to go up and down and pick up stuff, I get Rob for super smash vibes!!

[ovidiurosu]

Great, you've done a very good job, thank you. My version of the ROS robot didn't move as smooth as this one.
It would be nice if you get the chance to explain some of the optimizations, issues you faced and how you solved them. For example, I wasn't able to get my robot to drive backwards until it gets to a place big enough to spin. I also had a tough time with rotating fast enough to keep in sync with the navigation stack...

[TheSkogemann]

Awesome project! Looking forward to the nexxt episode :)