This is a ROS 2 package for Boston Dynamics' Spot. The package contains all necessary topics, services and actions to teleoperate or navigate Spot. This package is derived from this ROS 1 package. This package currently corresponds to version 4.0.0 of the spot-sdk.
This package is tested for Ubuntu 22.04 and ROS 2 Humble, which can be installed following this guide.
In your ROS 2 workspace src directory, clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2.gitand initialize and install the submodules:
cd spot_ros2
git submodule init
git submodule updateThen run the install script to install the necessary Boston Dynamics and ROS dependencies. The install script takes the optional argument --arm64; it otherwise defaults to an AMD64 install. Run the correct command based on your system:
cd <path to spot_ros2>
./install_spot_ros2.sh
or
./install_spot_ros2.sh --arm64From here, build and source the ROS 2 workspace:
cd <ros2 ws>
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install --packages-ignore proto2ros_tests
source install/local_setup.bash
We suggest ignoring the proto2ros_tests package in the build as it is not necessary for running the driver. If you choose to build it, you will see a number of error messages from testing the failure paths.
See spot_examples for some examples of using the ROS 2 driver to control Spot.
The spot login data hostname, username and password can either be specified as ROS parameters or as environment variables. If using ROS parameters, see spot_driver/config/spot_ros_example.yaml for an example of what your file could look like. If using environment variables, define BOSDYN_CLIENT_USERNAME, BOSDYN_CLIENT_PASSWORD, and SPOT_IP.
ros2 launch spot_description description.launch.py
ros2 launch spot_driver spot_driver.launch.py [config_file:=<path to your ROS config file>] [spot_name:=<Name of Spot running the driver>] [publish_point_clouds:=<True|False>] [launch_rviz:=<True|False>]
The command_spot_driver node contains service and action clients. To send a trajectory goal execute:
ros2 run spot_driver command_spot --ros-args -p command:=trajectory
Due to known issues with the Spot CAM, it is disabled by default. To enable publishing and usage over the driver, add the following command in your configuration YAML file:
initialize_spot_cam: True
The Spot CAM payload has known issues with the SSL certification process in https. If you get the following errors:
Then you want to log into the Spot CAM over the browser. In your browser, type in:
https://<ip_address_of_spot>:<sdp_port>/h264.sdp.html
The default port for SDP is 31102 for the Spot CAM. Once inside, you will be prompted to log in using your username and password. Do so and the WebRTC frames should begin to properly stream.
spot_msgs are normally compiled as part of this repository. If you would prefer to install them as a debian package, follow the steps below:
wget -q -O /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2/releases/download/spot_msgs-v0.0-0/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.deb
rm /tmp/ros-humble-spot-msgs_0.0.0-0jammy_amd64.debThe bosdyn_msgs package is installed as a debian package as part of the install_spot_ros2 script because it's very large. It can be checked out from source here and then built as a normal ROS 2 package if that is preferred (compilation takes about 15 minutes).
If you encounter problems when using this repository, feel free to open an issue or PR.
If you encounter ModuleNotFoundErrors with bosdyn packages upon running the driver, it is likely that the necessary Boston Dynamics API packages did not get installed with install_spot_ros2.sh. To check this, you can run the following command. Note that all versions should be 4.0.0.
$ pip list | grep bosdyn
bosdyn-api 4.0.0
bosdyn-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-auto-return-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-autowalk-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-choreography-client 4.0.0
bosdyn-choreography-protos 4.0.0
bosdyn-client 4.0.0
bosdyn-core 4.0.0
bosdyn-graph-nav-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-keepalive-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-log-status-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-metrics-logging-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-mission 4.0.0
bosdyn-mission-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-spot-api-msgs 4.0.0
bosdyn-spot-cam-api-msgs 4.0.0If these packages were not installed correctly on your system, you can try manually installing them following Boston Dynamics' guide.
MIT license - parts of the code developed specifically for ROS 2. BSD3 license - parts of the code derived from the Clearpath Robotics ROS1 driver.
To contribute, install pre-commit via pip, run pre-commit install and then run pre-commit run --all-files to
verify that your code will pass inspection.
git clone https://github.com/bdaiinstitute/spot_ros2.git
cd spot_ros2
pip3 install pre-commit
pre-commit install
pre-commit run --all-filesNow whenever you commit code to this repository, it will be checked against our pre-commit hooks. You can also run
git commit --no-verify if you wish to commit without checking against the hooks.
This project is a collaboration between the Mobile Autonomous Systems & Cognitive Robotics Institute (MASKOR) at FH Aachen and the Boston Dynamics AI Institute.
MASKOR contributors:
- Maximillian Kirsch
- Shubham Pawar
- Christoph Gollok
- Stefan Schiffer
- Alexander Ferrein
Boston Dynamics AI Institute contributors:
- Jenny Barry
- Daniel Gonzalez
- Tao Pang
- David Surovik
- Jiuguang Wang
- David Watkins
Linköping University contributors:
- Tommy Persson