ROS 2 in the development of an autonomous navigation application for a 4WD mobile robot with GPS, odometry and inertial systems

Resumo

Developing software for robots is a complex task as it involves many fields of knowledge, from sensor
drivers for data acquisition, data processing, control loops, artificial intelligence, task management, etc. In
addition, the hardware is often built distributed across different devices with different computing capabilities.
Based on this, the Robot Operating System (ROS) was developed, which is a framework for developing distributed
robot applications. ROS provides a communication layer that abstracts the way communication is performed and
allows transparent and distributed access to data. In addition, ROS provides tools for viewing information,

compiling, managing packages, etc. A new version called ROS 2 has been launched, and it includes industry-
standard features, best practices in software development to better support commercial and research robotic

applications. To demonstrate the use of ROS in the development of robotic applications, this paper presents an
outdoor autonomous navigation application of a 4WD robot. This application explored the use of microcontrollers
to control wheel speed, embedded minicomputer running algorithms for sensor fusion of odometry, inertial sensors
and GNSS for localization and navigation algorithms. Navigation tests were conducted in a parking lot.