First-Time Robot Setup Guide

This section is a collection of guides that aims to provide readers a good resource for setting up Nav2. The objectives for this section are as follows:

  • Help new users with setting up Navigation2 with a new robot

  • Help people with custom built robots to properly set up their robots to be used in ROS/Navigation2

  • Act as a checklist, template or boilerplate reference for more experienced readers

  • Provide examples which can be run on simulators/tools like Gazebo or RViz to guide readers on the Nav2 setup process even without a physical robot.

  • Broad strokes, tips, and tricks for configuring certain packages and integrating different components of the robot platform (sensors, odometry, etc.)

To guide you through the first-time setup of your robot, we will be tackling the following topics:

  • Introduce TF2 and setup your robot URDF

  • Setup sensor sources for robot odometry

  • Setup sensor sources for perception

  • Configure round or arbitrary shaped footprints for your robot

  • Select and set up planner and controller navigation plugins for your robot’s navigation tasks

  • Lifecycle node management for easy bringup of other related sensors or nodes

Table of Contents:

Note

These tutorials are not meant to be full tuning and configuration guides since they only aim to help you get your robot up and running with a basic configuration. For more detailed discussions and guides on how to customize and tune Nav2 for your robot, head on to the Configuration Guide section.