htp2 / ambf_load_adf_plugin

AMBF Load ADF Plugin

A plugin for the Asynchronous Multibody Framework (AMBF), see https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ambf The plugin allows you to load an ADF file into the AMBF simulator environment at arbitrary times during runtime using a ros service call

Developed by Henry Phalen

This exists as a "drag-and-drop" feature in the simulator already, but it is nice to be able to add things programmatically as well (e.g. you could call this service from e.g. a Python script to load an ADF file at a certain time in a simulation)

Features:

1. Load an ADF file into the simulator at runtime using a ros service call

rosservice call /ambf/load_adf_plugin/add_adf_file "data: '<filename>'"

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Building

Find most updated instructions for building AMBF on that git repository (https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ambf)

This plugin uses ROS so you build it in a catkin workspace.

Build within a catkin workspace (ROS1)

A simple package.xml has been included in this repository to enable catkin to find and build it <plugin_path> should be located within catkin_ws/src/

cd <catkin_ws>
catkin build ambf_load_adf_plugin

Using plugin

Starting plugin

Find most updated instructions for starting AMBF with plugins on that git repository (https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ambf)

You can test this plugin on the example by:

• <ambf_exe_dir> ---> e.g. ~/ambf/bin/lin-x86_64
• <plugin_so_path> ---> e.g. <catkin_ws>/devel/lib/libambf_load_adf_plugin.so
• <adf_filepath> ---> e.g. <ambf_path>/ambf_models/descriptions/multi-bodies/robots/blender-toy-car.yaml

Start a ROS core. Then start the simulator with the plugin:

cd <ambf_exe_dir>
./ambf_simulator --plugins <plugin_so_path>

Then you can load the ADF file into the simulator using the service call:

rosservice call /ambf/load_adf_plugin/add_adf_file "data: '<adf_filepath>'"

It is best practice to put your plugins into your launch.yaml file e.g.

plugins: [
  {
    name: ROS_ADF_LOADER,
    filename: libambf_load_adf_plugin.so,
    path: <plugin_so_path> .
  }
]

TODOs / Future Work

Something I hope to get to someday (or you could do it too! :) )

1. Why does the so appear in <catkin_ws>/devel/lib, not <catkin_ws>/build/?
2. ROS2 version