GPS Navigation Tools - Gridmap Creator

Overview

The GPS Navigation Tools project provides a ROS 2 node for generating a dynamic gridmap based on GPS data. This node, GridmapGpsCreator, listens to GPS coordinates and constructs a gridmap where distances between points are visualized using a color gradient, indicating proximity from near to far.

Key Features

• GPS Integration: Subscribes to GPS topics to receive positional data.
• Dynamic Gridmap Generation: Continuously updates a gridmap as new GPS data is received.
• Color Gradient Visualization: Maps the proximity of GPS points with a color scale from closest to farthest.
• Customizable Parameters: Users can configure grid resolution, map size, and color ranges.
• ROS 2 Compatible: Fully integrated within the ROS 2 ecosystem for seamless use in robotics applications.

Node: GridmapGpsCreator

Subscribed Topics

• /gps_topic (sensor_msgs/msg/NavSatFix): Receives GPS position data in latitude and longitude format.

Published Topics

• /grid_map (grid_map_msgs/msg/GridMap): Publishes the dynamically generated gridmap that reflects the geographic area based on the received GPS data.

Parameters

• gps_topic_ (string): Topic to subscribe to for GPS data.
• resolution_gridmap_ (double): Resolution of the gridmap in meters per cell. Default is 0.2.
• size_x_ (double): Size of the gridmap in the X direction (width) in meters. Default is 100.0.
• size_y_ (double): Size of the gridmap in the Y direction (height) in meters. Default is 100.0.
• color_unknown_ (float): Default color for unknown areas in the gridmap.
• color_start_ (float): Color representing the closest GPS points.
• color_end_ (float): Color representing the farthest GPS points.

Requirements

Ubuntu 24.04 and ROS 2 Rolling distro are recommended. Rolling can be installed following this steps

Installation

Clone this repository into your ROS 2 workspace:

cd ~/gps_nav_tools_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/aaggj/gps_nav_tools.git

Then build the package:

cd ~/gps_nav_tools_ws
colcon build

Usage

Launch the node with default settings:

ros2 run gps_nav_tools gridmap_gps_creator

To customize the parameters, you can use a ROS 2 launch file or pass them directly via the command line.

ros2 run gps_nav_tools gridmap_gps_creator --ros-args -p gps_topic:=/custom_gps_topic -p resolution_gridmap:=0.1

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.