Driving a robot standalone

Overview

arena_robots exposes a single launch entry point (bringup.launch.py) that brings up a nav stack + a task_server node in a given namespace. The task_server advertises arena IDL action servers, one per TaskKind the chosen bringup supports. Clients send goals to those endpoints; the task_server translates them to the underlying nav stack. task_generator is one consumer of this surface; any ROS 2 process or CLI can be another.

Launch a robot standalone

ros2 launch arena_robots bringup.launch.py \
    robot:=husky \
    namespace:=husky_1 \
    bringup:=nav2 \
    use_sim_time:=true

Arg	Meaning
robot	Robot name, must match a directory under arena_robots/robots/
namespace	ROS namespace for all nodes and action endpoints
bringup	Nav stack to bring up: nav2, none, or external
use_sim_time	Pass true when using Gazebo sim time; false for a real-time clock

Drive via ros2 CLI

ros2 action send_goal /husky_1/goto_pose arena_robots_msgs/action/GotoPose \
    "{target: {header: {frame_id: 'map'}, pose: {position: {x: 2.0, y: 1.0}, orientation: {w: 1.0}}}}"

Drive via Python

import rclpy, tf2_ros
from arena_robots.Robot import RobotIdentifier
from arena_robots.clients.goto_pose import GotoPoseClient
from arena_robots_msgs.action import GotoPose

rclpy.init()
node = rclpy.create_node('driver')
tf = tf2_ros.Buffer()
tf2_ros.TransformListener(tf, node)

robot = RobotIdentifier('husky').resolve()
client = GotoPoseClient(robot, namespace='husky_1', node=node, tf_buffer=tf)
await client.wait_ready()

goal = GotoPose.Goal()
goal.target.header.frame_id = 'map'
goal.target.pose.position.x = 2.0
await client.send_goal(goal)
result = await client.await_result()

GotoPoseClient is in arena_robots.clients.goto_pose. send_goal returns once the server accepts the goal; await_result blocks until the action completes. Every planner-driven bringup (nav2, drl, rosnav_rl, external) holds the goal open until the robot arrives within tolerance and preempts it when a newer goal lands; only none and manual treat goto_pose as a fire-and-forget goal publish.

List published action endpoints

ros2 action list | grep /husky_1/

Expected output for a nav2 bringup:

/husky_1/goto_pose

Real-robot caveat

state_publisher.launch.py (included by bringup.launch.py) hardcodes use_sim_time=true internally. For real-robot deployments, launch your own robot_state_publisher with use_sim_time:=false before (or instead of) invoking bringup.launch.py, or provide a compatible wrapper that does not set use_sim_time.