Tutorial

This tutorial assumes the workspace has already been installed, built, and sourced as described in Installation and Build.

Verify the Robot Description

Open the robot description in RViz:

ros2 launch ros2_control_blue_reach_5 view_robot.launch.py

This checks the xacro/URDF description and the RViz model display before starting the full runtime stack.

Launch Interactive Simulation

Start one fully simulated UVMS in the interactive task:

ros2 launch ros2_control_blue_reach_5 robot_system_multi_interface.launch.py \
    use_manipulator_hardware:=false \
    use_vehicle_hardware:=false \
    sim_robot_count:=1 \
    task:=interactive

The launch starts ros2_control, simulated vehicle/manipulator hardware, controllers, SimLab interactive controls, planner nodes, and RViz.

Common Launch Arguments

use_manipulator_hardware:=false: use the simulated manipulator.
use_vehicle_hardware:=false: use the simulated vehicle.
sim_robot_count:=1: spawn one simulated UVMS.
task:=interactive: run RViz menus, planning, replay, and optional manual joystick command input.
task:=manual: run PS4 direct command teleoperation.
task:=direct_thrusters: run keyboard direct-thruster control.
record_data:=true: start the rosbag2 MCAP recorder.
gui:=false: run without RViz.

Use the interactive task for the normal simulator tutorial path. See Controls, Menus, and Teleoperation for the menu and joystick behavior of each task.

Inspect the Runtime

List active controllers:

ros2 control list_controllers

List available hardware interfaces:

ros2 control list_hardware_interfaces

Inspect the central state stream:

ros2 topic echo /dynamic_joint_states

The exact controller names depend on robot count, task, and hardware/simulation selection. See Services, Actions, and Topics for the main runtime interfaces.

Record Data

Enable rosbag recording at launch:

ros2 launch ros2_control_blue_reach_5 robot_system_multi_interface.launch.py \
    use_manipulator_hardware:=false \
    use_vehicle_hardware:=false \
    sim_robot_count:=1 \
    task:=interactive \
    record_data:=true

Bags are saved as uvms_bag_YYYYmmdd_HHMMSS in the launch working directory.