multimaster_node

Overview

multimaster_node is a C++ library that implement proxy for inter-master communication. It is designed specifically for cases where standard behavior for communication between individual ROS masters is insufficient to implement the required tasks.

Features:

• Supports broadcast the list of topics from host pc to foreign pc and vice verse.
• Supports broadcast the tf transforms from host pc to foreign pc and vice verse.
• Released under the [BSD 2-Clause license].
• Support for ROS1 (see instructions below).

It contains:

• host2foreign - node implement broadcast from host pc to foreign pc. List of topic and transform to broadcast specified in the host2foreign_config.yaml file in config directory. Node start and parameter load in multimaster.launch in launch directory.
  • Parameters:
    • local pubs - list of nedeed topics.
    • local_tf - list of nedeed broadcast.
    • foreign_ip - ip of foreign PC.
    • foreign_port - port of foreign PC (where ROS master hosts).
    • msgs_pub_freq - frequency of publishing broadcast and topics.
    • add_topic_prefix - add prefix ns to publishing topics(optional).
    • strip_topic_prefix - strip prefix ns of publishing topics(optional).
    • add_topic_suffix - add suffix ns to publishing topics(optional).
    • strip_topic_suffix - strip suffix ns of publishing topics(optional).
  • To run:
    • open launch file ../multimaster_node/config/host2foreign_config.yaml and add the ip and port of foreign PC, and list of nedeed transform and topics.
    • run roscore on both PC (not necessary to run roscore on foreign PC before launching multimaster because it has autoconnect).
    • run multimaster: roslaunch multimaster_node host2foreign.launch.
  • Troubleshooting:
    • Problem with sending messages between PCs, type on both PC (add to ~/.bashrc): export ROS_HOSTNAME = ip_adress_of_pc (e.g.export ROS_HOSTNAME=192.168.0.10).
    • Problem with topic loop dependency on host ROS master (when on host ROS master topic stop publishing msgs, but node on foreign PC continue publishing), main idea is not using the same publishing and subscribe topic name, instead use one of namespace parameter.