[Meta-ticket] Port gazebo_ros2_control to ROS 2

[ahcorde]

Not all functionality from ROS 1 has been ported to ROS 2 yet.

For ROS 1 see http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=ros_control

This package provides a plugin which uses the ros2_control API to control joints inside Gazebo simulations.

The gazebo_ros_control tag also has the following optional child elements:

• robotNamespace: The ROS namespace to be used for this instance of the plugin, defaults to robot name in URDF/SDF
• controlPeriod: The period of the controller update (in seconds), defaults to Gazebo's period
• robotParam: The location of the robot_description (URDF) on the parameter server.
  • Parameters in ROS 2 are inside each node. By default the plugin check this parameter in a node called robot_state_publisher and the parameter is called robot_description
• robotSimType: The pluginlib name of a custom robot sim interface to be used (see below for more details), defaults to 'DefaultRobotHWSim'

TODO

• Extend parameters:
  • Define the node to get the robotParam. Define the node to get the robotParam. #4
• Add demos for all ported functionality.

Already added

• ROS 2's style guidelines and linters.
• Add demos for all ported functionality.

Not implemented yet

• PID Migrate PID controllers #5

Status

Package		Status
gazebo_ros_control
	default_robot_hw_sim	🧑‍🏭 partially ported
	gazebo_ros_control_plugin	🧑‍🏭 partially ported
	robot_hw_sim	🧑‍🏭 partially ported

[bmagyar]

Hi @ahcorde , here's a github project on the ros-controls org side collecting tickets for making ROS1 functionality available: https://github.com/orgs/ros-controls/projects/5

feel free to request new ones to be added

[chapulina]

@bmagyar , if it would make it easier to transfer this repo to ros-controls so it is better integrated with the board, just let us know.

[ahcorde]

• Define the node to get the robotParam Added robotParamNode to gazebo_ros2_control plugin #8

[mkhansenbot]

I'm looking for a status, not clear to me what's left to be done for porting gazebo_ros2_controls? @chapulina or @ahcorde can you update?

[chapulina]

@mkhansenbot , we've paused work on this task until the upstream ros2_control package is released into Foxy. Our understanding is that there are upcoming API changes to ros2_control that will require a refactoring of the code that we currently have in gazebo_ros2_control.

We've been tracking upstream's changes in the hope that providing simulation would speed up their development. However, the latest I heard, the ros2_control developers aren't making use of gazebo_ros2_control, so there isn't much benefit in us continuing to track their development so closely. Once ros2_control is stable (i.e. released), we'll restart work and update what's needed here.

[mkhansenbot]

Thanks for the update, I'll check with the ros2_control maintainers

[chapulina]

All the basic functionality is available since #44 . We're planning to make a bloom release into Foxy soon.

[ahcorde]

Package was released and master branch build on top of Foxy packages thanks to this PR #44