Preface

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a globally used robotics middleware that helps developers to program robotic applications and is currently adopted by robotics companies, research centers, and universities to program advanced robots. Mastering ROS for Robotics Programming, Third Edition presents advanced concepts of the ROS framework and is particularly suitable for users who are already familiar with the basic concepts of ROS. However, a brief introduction to the basic ROS concepts is provided in the first chapter in order to help new developers start with the examples in the book.

You will be guided through the creation, the modeling and design, of new robots, as well as simulating and interfacing them with the ROS framework. You will use advanced simulation software to use ROS tools that allow robot navigation, manipulation, and sensor elaboration. Finally, you will learn how to handle important concepts such as ROS low-level controllers, nodelets, and plugins.

You can work with almost all of the examples of the book using only a standard computer without any special hardware requirements. However, additional hardware components will be used in some chapters of the book to discuss how to use ROS with external sensors, actuators, and I/O boards.

The book is organized as follows: after an introduction to the basic concepts of ROS, how to model and simulate a robot is discussed. Gazebo, CoppeliaSim, and the Webots software simulator will be used to control and interact with the modeled robot. These simulators will be used to connect to robots with the MoveIt! and navigation ROS packages. ROS plugins, controllers, and nodelets are then discussed. Finally, the book discusses how to connect MATLAB and Simulink with ROS.