Using Arduino to add more sensors and actuators

Arduino is an open source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. The following image shows how an Arduino board looks:

ROS can use this type of device with the rosserial package. Basically, Arduino is connected to the computer using a serial connection, and data is transmitted using this port. With rosserial, you can also use a lot of devices controlled by a serial connection, for example, GPS, servo controllers, and so on.

First, we need to install the packages. To do this, we use the following command lines:

$ sudo apt-get install ros-hydro-rosserial-arduino
$ sudo apt-get install ros-hydro-rosserial

Then, for the catkin workspace, we need to clone the rosserial repository into the workspace. The rosserial messages are created and ros_lib is compiled with the following command...