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Virtual Reality Interface for Robot Teleoperation and Environment Visualisation

A Virtual Reality interface implemented in Unity which is used to connect to a mobile robot running the Robot Operating System. It provides visualisations of sensor data as well as controls for teleoperation. It was created as part of a YorRobots Venables Internship in the summer of 2023.

Screenshot of interface with map dashboard

Video Demonstrations

Setup

  • Ubuntu 22.04 VM with ROS2 Humble
    • Turtlebot3 Nodes
    • SLAM Toolbox / Cartographer
    • Navigation 2
    • ROS TCP Endpoint
  • Windows host with Unity 2022.2 and SteamVR
    • HTC Vive Pro Eye (Or other HTC Vive headset)
    • Clone project and open with Unity 2022.2

Full Setup Guide

Running the Interface with Simulation

Start up the Ubuntu VM if it is not already running. There are four commands to run for simulating the robot with slam and navigation

To run the ROS TCP Endpoint run the following replacing <IP ADDRESS> with the IP address found above using hostname -I.

cd ~/ros2_ws
source install/setup.bash (May not exist so ignore it on first run)
colcon build
source install/setup.bash
ros2 run ros_tcp_endpoint default_server_endpoint –ros-args -p ROS_IP:=<IP ADDRESS>

Launch the Gazebo Simulation of the turtlebot with either of the following commands in a new terminal:

ros2 launch turtlebot3_gazebo turtlebot3_house.launch.py

or

ros2 launch turtlebot3_gazebo turtlebot3_world.launch.py

Launch SLAM Toolbox in a new terminal:

ros2 launch slam_toolbox online_async_launch.py use_sim_time:=True

Or launch Cartographer

ros2 launch turtlebot3_cartographer cartographer.launch.py use_sim_time:=True

Launch Navigation2 in a new terminal:

ros2 launch turtlebot3_navigation2 navigation2.launch.py use_sim_time:=True

To launch the unity project, open Assets/_VR Robotics/Scenes/Base Scene.unity. Make sure the ROS Connector Script in the ROS Tools->ROSConnectionPrefab GameObject has the right IP address, connect the VR headset and click play.

Running the Interface with an Actual Turtlebot3

Turtlebot3

Either in seperate terminals or in seperate tmux panes run the following commands:

ros2 launch turtlebot3_bringup robot.launch.py
ros2 launch ./picamera.launch.py

VM or Remote PC

Launch SLAM Toolbox in a new terminal:

ros2 launch slam_toolbox online_async_launch.py use_sim_time:=True

Or launch Cartographer

ros2 launch turtlebot3_cartographer cartographer.launch.py use_sim_time:=True

Launch Navigation2 in a new terminal:

ros2 launch turtlebot3_navigation2 navigation2.launch.py use_sim_time:=True

To run the ROS TCP Endpoint in a new terminal run the following replacing <IP ADDRESS> with the IP address found above using hostname -I.

cd ~/ros2_ws
source install/setup.bash (May not exist so ignore it on first run)
colcon build
source install/setup.bash
ros2 run ros_tcp_endpoint default_server_endpoint –ros-args -p ROS_IP:=<IP ADDRESS>

Windows

To launch the unity project, open Assets/_VR Robotics/Scenes/Base Scene.unity. Make sure the ROS Connector Script in the ROS Tools -> ROSConnectionPrefab GameObject has the right IP address, connect the VR headset and click play.