Simulating Decawave UWB data with ROS2

Simulate, store and view Decawave (now Qorvo) UWB listener data

Requirements

This program was made with Python 3.10 and ROS2 Humble using ubuntu 22.03. click on the following links to check installation steps:

Python installation

ROS2 humble

Installation

After you have installed python and ROS2 humble into your ubuntu system, you can clone this repo:

git clone https://github.com/Xpect8tions/Decawave-ros-data-sim

next, move into the directory to build your workspace:

cd Decawave-ros-data-sim
colcon build

now you should see the build, install and log folders along side the src directory. Once all that has been done, you can start testing the code.

Inside the package

The /src/locator package contains 4 main folders, /locator, /launch, /config and /logging.

/locator

The /locator folder contains the 2 main files serial_port_pub.py and serial_port_sub.py to be run or launched. The serial_port_pub.py program simulates the UWB message that is recieved by the computer through the COM port (see figure below) and then published to the /output string topic via ros.

The serial_port_sub.py program will create a subscriber that then subscribes to the /output string topic. it then processes the recieved message and stores it in a the csv that is in the /logging folder. Once it is done processing the string, it will also publish the information recieved to the /markers message so that the information can be viewed with RViz.

/logging

The /logging folder contains a single csv which is updated while the serial_port_sub.py file runs.

/launch

The /launch directory contains a launch file, serial.launch.py that launches the serial_port_sub.py program. It also launches RViz with a preset config which is determined by the rviz_config.rviz file in the /config folder. Click here for details.

When launching this program, RViz will also get launched. The data that the subscriber has processed is then passed on to the RViz publisher to view the location of the tags and anchors.

The red cylinders are the anchors and the blue cylinder is the tag

Running the programs

Both the files mentioned above need to be run simultaneously to be able to see how the program works properly.

open 2 seperate terminals and enter the workspace in both terminals:

cd Decawave-ros-data-sim

remember to source ROS2 and install in all new terminals you may open:

source /opt/ros/<distro>/setup.bash
source install/setup.bash

in one terminal, run:

ros2 launch locator serial.launch.py

in the other terminal, run:

ros2 run locator serial_pub

you should see an RViz window open with 4 red cylinders and 1 blue one. The blue one should be moving toward the bottom corner.