A* Global Planner Plugin for ROS

Developed on ROS Indigo and using C++

Follow steps below to run the plugin on the system:

1. Install turtlebot on ROS Indigo(or follow similar steps for other ROS versions ) as below: http://wiki.ros.org/turtlebot/Tutorials/indigo/Turtlebot%20Installation

2. Clone the repository to your desktop

3. roscd to turtlebot_navigation package. Add following line in your move_base.launch.xml file under launch/includes(you may need to sudo): <param name="base_global_planner" value="astar_plugin/AStarPlanner"/>

4. Copy the files in map folder under astar_planner ros package from the cloned reposiory to the path below:

   /opt/ros/<distro>/share/turtlebot_stage/maps

5. Type the following to launch stage and rviz with loaded map and turtlebot:

   roslaunch turtlebot_stage turtlebot_in_stage.launch

6. Now click on “2D nav goal” button (at the top) in rviz and choose a goal location. You can now see your robot moving to its goal.

NOTE: Sometimes error can come while launching turtlebot_stage due to incorrect path of amcl launch file. This is known error. "opt/ros/indigo/share/turtlebot_navigation/launch/includes/amcl.launch.xml: Invalid roslaunch XML syntax: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'/opt/ros/indigo/share/turtlebot_navigation/launch/includes/amcl.launch.xml'"

For this we will have to open turtlebot_in_stage.launch from turtlebot_stage package (might require sudo) and change the following :

<include file="$(find turtlebot_navigation)/launch/includes/amcl.launch.xml" > to: <include file="$(find turtlebot_navigation)/launch/includes/amcl/amcl.launch.xml">