The Spot robot comes with its own Spot SDK from Boston Dynamics, available in Python3 and C++. However, there is a ROS package that allows you to trigger most functionality of the robot using ROS messages, services and actions.
Installing the ROS package follows the same process as any other ROS package; git clone the repository, install dependencies, then build the package. Instructions from the Github Pages is [[https://heuristicus.github.io/spot_ros/html/index.html|here]]. It is recommended to use ROS Noetic for Python3 compatibility. Use a Docker container to get the correct ROS distro setup with all the distro-specific packages.
First, setup your catkin workspace, if you haven't already. Then, download the source code.
mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash
git clone https://github.com/heuristicus/spot_ros.git ~/catkin/src/spot_ros
Next, install the required dependencies with `rosdep`.
sudo apt install -y python3-rosdep
rosdep install --from-paths ~/catkin_ws/src --ignore-src -y
Build the package with `catkin build`.
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin build
Source the built package.
source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
Alternatively, you can make use of pre-built Docker images generated by the CI pipeline.
- Download the image from Docker Hub with `sudo docker pull jeremysee/spot_ros:master`