Webots: ROSbot XL + SLAM Toolbox + Navigation2

About

Webots is a popular simulation engine for ROS 2 projects. This guide demonstrates how to run the ROSbot XL simulation in Webots, create a map of the unknown world using the Slam Toolbox and deploy autonomous navigation with Navigation2 Stack. The final result looks like this:

Quick Start

Prerequisites

Install Docker Engine (+ Compose) by using the official guide. The project was tested on:

$ docker compose version
Docker Compose version v2.12.2
$
$ docker --version
Docker version 20.10.21, build baeda1f

The compose.sim.webots.yaml file uses NVIDIA Container Runtime. Make sure you have NVIDIA GPU and the NVIDIA Container Toolkit installed.

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/husarion/rosbot-xl-autonomy
cd rosbot-xl-autonomy

Start the containers in a new terminal:

xhost +local:docker && \
SLAM_MODE=slam docker compose -f compose.sim.webots.yaml up

To direct the robot to explore new areas autonomously and create a map (in the slam mode) or simply to position itself within an existing map, click on the [2D Goal Pose] button in RViz and select the place on the map.

Source code

The full source code can be found here and it allows you to start SLAM Toolbox and Navigation2 on ROSbot XL in the following configurations:

Configuration	Compose Files	Additional Requirements
Physical robot and PC in the same LAN	compose.yaml + compose.pc.yaml	-
Physical robot and PC in different networks (VPN)	compose.yaml + compose.pc.yaml	Husarnet VPN configured on ROSbot and PC and FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE environment variable set to /husarnet-fastdds.xml or CYCLONEDDS_URI set to file:///husarnet-cyclonedds.xmldepending on the RMW_IMPLEMENTATION.
Gazebo simulation	compose.sim.gazebo.yaml	-
Webots simulation	compose.sim.webots.yaml	-

Let's focus on the Webots simulation:

compose.sim.webots.yaml

x-gpu-config:
  &gpu-config
  runtime: nvidia
  environment:
    - DISPLAY=${DISPLAY:?err}
    - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
    - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all

services:

  rviz:
    image: husarion/rviz2:humble-11.2.6-20230809
    <<: *gpu-config
    volumes:
      - /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw
      - ./config/rosbot.rviz:/root/.rviz2/default.rviz

  rosbot-xl:
    image: husarion/webots:humble-2023.0.4-20230809-stable
    <<: *gpu-config
    volumes:
      - /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw
    command: ros2 launch webots_ros2_husarion rosbot_xl_launch.py

  slam:
    image: husarion/navigation2:humble-1.1.8-20230809
    volumes:
      - ./config/${SLAM_MODE:-slam}_webots_params.yaml:/params.yaml
      - ./maps:/maps
    environment:
      - SLAM_MODE=${SLAM_MODE:-slam}
    command: >
      ros2 launch nav2_bringup ${SLAM_MODE:-slam}_launch.py
        params_file:=/params.yaml
        map:=/maps/map.yaml
        use_sim_time:=True

  navigation:
    image: husarion/navigation2:humble-1.1.8-20230809
    volumes:
      - ./config/nav2_params.yaml:/params.yaml
    command: >
      ros2 launch nav2_bringup navigation_launch.py
        params_file:=/params.yaml
        use_sim_time:=True

There are 4 Docker services:

• rviz which starts the RViz2 ROS 2 Visualisation tool. The source code for building that Docker image is here
• rosbot-xl which starts the ROSbot 2R Webots simulation in the Husarion world. The source code for building that Docker image is here
• slam is a Dockerized SLAM Toolbox package
• navigation is a Dockerized Navigation2 package.

Additionally, config files are bind mounted to rviz, slam and navigation services that are available in the project repository.

Summary

And that's all! If you would like to run your own ROS 2 code with Webots, all you need to do is to build your own, minimal Docker image running only your own ROS 2 node. You can simply reuse the husarion/webots Docker image that contains launch files for Husarion robots.