Polaris DAVE Simulation

Repository for Polaris scripts to simulate sensors and control nodes.

• dive_test.py, example script to test dave setup.
• bladder_control_node, example node setup for the 2025 divetest. Fully integrated nodes setup can be found at polaris-ros2-divetest.

Current Status

• Issues

Setup

Prerequisites

• Install DAVE, our custom fork containing the Polaris model.

Tip

Set up python dependencies, add to requirements.txt:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Tip

Set up shell aliases, add to ~/.bashrc_aliases:

alias jazzy='source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash'
alias harmonic='source /opt/gazebo/install/setup.bash && export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/opt/gazebo/install/lib/python'
alias dave='jazzy && harmonic && source ~/dave_ws/install/setup.bash'

Build this workspace

cd /home/loco/nautilus/polaris-dave-simulation
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
colcon build --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash

Usage Example

Working example with Polaris custom dave code at this commit.

1. Start DAVE simulation

Terminal 1:

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
source /opt/gazebo/install/setup.bash && export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/opt/gazebo/install/lib/python
source ~/dave_ws/install/setup.bash
source run.sh

2. Run dive test

Terminal 2:

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
source install/setup.bash
ros2 run py_pkg dive_test

Development

Workspace Structure

polaris-dave-simulation/
├── src/
│   └── py_pkg/
│       ├── py_pkg/
│       │   ├── dive_test.py
│       │   └── bladder_control_node/
│       ├── package.xml
│       └── setup.py
├── requirements.txt
└── run.sh

Creating New Nodes

When adding new ROS2 nodes to this package, follow the structure of the existing bladder_control_node:

1. Create a new directory under src/py_pkg/py_pkg/ for your node
2. Implement your node class inheriting from rclpy.node.Node
3. Add the entry point in setup.py:

   entry_points={
       'console_scripts': [
           'your_node_name = py_pkg.your_node_directory.main:main',
       ],
   }

4. Rebuild the workspace with colcon build

Development Workflow

After making changes to the code:

# Navigate to workspace root
cd ~/nautilus/polaris-dave-simulation

# Source ROS2
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash

# Rebuild the package
colcon build --symlink-install --packages-select py_pkg

# Source the updated workspace
source install/setup.bash

Debugging

Some useful debugging commands,

• To run nodes with additional debugging output:

ros2 run py_pkg your_node --ros-args --log-level debug

• To inspect active topics and nodes:

# List all topics
ros2 topic list

# Echo a specific topic
ros2 topic echo /your/topic/name

# List all nodes
ros2 node list

# Get info about a node
ros2 node info /your_node_name