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Computer Setup

Building the Driver from Source

The driver is not released to the ROS package servers, so it must be built from source. This requires a source workspace on the ROS PC. You can add it to an existing workspace or follow the instructions below to create a new one.

mkdir -p ~/spot_ws/src

Setup the workspace so it knows about your ROS installation

cd ~/spot_ws/src
source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash
catkin_init_workspace

Clone the spot_ros repository into the workspace

cd ~/spot_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/heuristicus/spot_ros.git

Use rosdep to install of the necessary dependencies

cd ~/spot_ws/
rosdep install --from-paths spot_driver spot_msgs spot_viz spot_description --ignore-src -y

Once all the necessary packages are installed, build the packages in the workspace

cd ~/spot_ws/
catkin build

Source your newly built workspace and the packages inside

source ~/spot_ws/devel/setup.bash

Adding to the URDF

Warning

When adding payloads, you should always add them to the robot's configuration through the admin panel. Adding only the URDF does not add the payload to spot's built in collision avoidance.

The driver supports some configuration of the URDF via environment variables. These can either be manually set in the terminal before starting the driver, or added to $HOME/.bashrc as desired. The table below lists the available variables and their default values:

Variable Default Value Description
SPOT_PACK 0 If 1, enables the Clearpath ROS backpack accessory and adds it to the URDF
SPOT_LIDAR_MOUNT 0 If 1, adds the Lidar mount to the backpack. Requires SPOT_PACK to be 1
SPOT_VELODYNE 0 If 1, adds the a VLP-16 sensor to the lidar mount. Requires SPOT_LIDAR_MOUNT to be 1
SPOT_ARM 0 If 1, adds the Spot arm to the URDF
SPOT_VELODYNE_XYZ 0 0 0 XYZ offset for the VLP-16 from the backpack lidar mount
SPOT_VELODYNE_RPY 0 0 0 RPY offset for the VLP-16 from the backpack lidar mount
SPOT_URDF_EXTRAS empty.urdf Optional URDF file to add additional joints and links to the robot

You can add a custom URDF to the robot using the SPOT_URDF_EXTRAS environment variable, which must be set in the terminal from which the driver is run. This should point to a URDF/xacro file which has an object where the parent is one of the frames on the robot.

It might look something like below.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<robot name="spot_frontier" xmlns:xacro="http://www.ros.org/wiki/xacro">
  <xacro:include filename="$(find my_payload_package)/urdf/my_payload.xacro"/>
  <xacro:my_payload parent="real_rear_rail"/>
</robot>

Building for Melodic

Note

If you can, consider using ROS noetic instead, which does not have these build issues.

Please note that the Spot SDK uses Python3, which is not officially supported by ROS Melodic. If you encounter an error of this form:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/administrator/catkin_ws/src/spot_ros/spot_driver/scripts/spot_ros", line 3, in <module>
    from spot_driver.spot_ros import SpotROS
  File "/home/administrator/catkin_ws/src/spot_ros/spot_driver/src/spot_driver/spot_ros.py", line 19, in <module>
    import tf2_ros
  File "/opt/ros/melodic/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/tf2_ros/__init__.py", line 38, in <module>
    from tf2_py import *
  File "/opt/ros/melodic/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/tf2_py/__init__.py", line 38, in <module>
    from ._tf2 import *
ImportError: dynamic module does not define module export function (PyInit__tf2)

When launching the driver, please follow these steps:

  1. rm -rf devel/ build/ install/ -- this will remove any old build artifacts from your workspace
  2. git clone https://github.com/ros/geometry2 --branch 0.6.5 into your src folder
  3. rebuild your workspace with
catkin_make --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 -DPYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/python3.6m -DPYTHON_LIBRARY=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpython3.6m.so

Or if you are using an Nvidia Jetson:

catkin_make --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3 -DPYTHON_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/include/python3.6m -DPYTHON_LIBRARY=/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libpython3.6m.so
  1. re-run source devel/setup.bash
  2. start the driver with roslaunch spot_driver driver.launch