Please note that development for this this project is on going, and the use of it is free, but please do not hold us responsible for any damage or injuries that may occur.

A description of directories and their contents can be found in DIRECTORIES.md within the root directory.

Here is the list of parts we are using for our project.

• Beaglebone Black rev C (https://beagleboard.org/black)
• 200 step/rev stepper motor (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sparkfun-electronics/ROB-09238/1568-1105-ND/5318747)
• Big Easy Driver stepper motor controller (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/sparkfun-electronics/ROB-12859/1568-1066-ND/5172292)
• XBee s2c (http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/XB24CZ7WIT-004/602-1560-ND/5322374?WT.mc_id=IQ_7595_G_pla5322374&wt.srch=1&wt.medium=cpc&WT.srch=1&gclid=CjwKEAiAlZDFBRCKncm67qihiHwSJABtoNIgd-NB0uezDv2EFoaoVTWRJEV3_bQeuC2OznSORwJfrRoCnnzw_wcB)
• Pioneer 3-DX (http://www.mobilerobots.com/researchrobots/PioneerP3DX.aspx)

You can use parts other than the ones listed above but obviously the code will need to be changed accordingly.

ekf_slam is licensed using GPLv3 from v3.0.5 onwards. For more information on what this means for you, please see LICENSE.

This project is being written for the use of a Beaglebone Black running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (available at https://rcn-ee.net/) and ROS kinetic. Make sure to install ROS kinetic according to the installation instructions on http://www.ros.org/ before downloading and installing this package. To install the package, clone or download this repository into the top level source directory of your ROS workspace.

The project requires 2 libraries in order to be able to build: libxbee3 and BlackLib. These libraries are included in the lib directory as gitmodules. To install libxbee3, follow the installation instructions found in its README. For BlackLib, I have added a CMakeLists.txt to the version used in this project so it will build the necessary objects. The gitmodule I included should be for the version with CMakeLists.txt included but I am still learning Git so check to make sure the file is present. If it is not there, it can be found in the master branch of the BlackLib repository forked to my account.

Here are links to both repositories that I have forked for this project:

• https://github.com/attie/libxbee3
• https://github.com/yigityuce/BlackLib

NOTE: Since the Eigen library is included in ROS (since Electric), the Eigen library is not included as a submodule in this repository. The CMakeLists.txt adds the library from ROS instead.

In order to build the package, it is advised to use the combination of cmake and catkin tools provided with ROS kinetic. In the root directory of your ROS workspace, use this command to build all ROS packages:

$ catkin_make

Or, for just the ekf_slam package:

$ catkin_make --pkg ekf_slam

Obviously this will only work in a Linux distribution supported by ROS kinetic and has it installed.

Currently this package is written as a standalone node. To run the node, use this command in the root directory of your ROS workspace:

$ roslaunch ekf_slam node.launch

Although there are no current plans to convert this node to a ROS package for use on other platforms, it is possible that this may be done after the completion of this project.

Right now the package is written in a way so you must add changes to main.cpp and recompile in order to make changes to the program. However, due to the way ROS works, it is possible to add control of the operation of the package from another language over a network (such as MATLAB using the Robotics System Toolbox). If (and when) these interfaces are created, the source for the executable will be added to the Interfaces directory of this repository. A new launch file for the associated executable will also most likely be added to the launch directory.