Robot TF Publisher

This ROS2 package publishes static transforms for a robot described by a URDF file. It is designed to work as a standalone TF publisher, even in environments where standard tools like joint_state_publisher might be missing.

Overview

• Package Name: robot_tf_publisher
• Main Nodes:
  • robot_state_publisher: Publishes TFs based on the URDF.
  • dummy_joint_publisher: A custom Python node that publishes static zero-values for wheel joints (wheel_left_revolute, wheel_right_revolute) to ensure a complete TF tree.

Directory Structure

robot_tf_publisher/
├── CMakeLists.txt              # Build configuration
├── package.xml                 # Package manifest and dependencies
├── README.md                   # This documentation
├── launch/
│   └── tf_publisher.launch.py  # Main launch file
├── urdf/
│   └── robot.urdf              # Robot description (URDF)
└── scripts/
    └── dummy_joint_publisher.py # Custom joint state publisher

Dependencies

• robot_state_publisher
• launch
• launch_ros
• rclpy (for the dummy joint publisher)

Note: This package replaces the standard joint_state_publisher with a custom lightweight script to avoid dependency issues.

Build Instructions

To build the package, run the following from your workspace root:

# Source ROS2 environment (if not already sourced)
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

# Build the package
colcon build --packages-select robot_tf_publisher

Usage

After building, source the install setup and launch the publisher:

source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch robot_tf_publisher tf_publisher.launch.py

This will:

1. Load urdf/robot.urdf.
2. Start robot_state_publisher with the robot description.
3. Start dummy_joint_publisher to publish joint states.
4. Publish the full TF tree for the robot.