ROS Based Visual Programming Tool for Mobile Robot Education and\n Applications

Abstract

Visual programming languages (VPLs) provide coding without typing texts. VPL\nmakes coding easy to programmers with automatically adding usually used some\ncode structure. Beginners in coding have generally two main challenges;\ntransforming ideas into logical expressions and syntax errors. Syntax errors\nare impossible with VPLs because of there is no forgotten parentheses and\nsemicolons. VPLs provide to focus on algorithm for programmers. VPL is a new\ntrend for educational robotic environments. In this study, Robot Operating\nSystem (ROS) compatible web based visual programming system has been developed\nfor evarobot. ROS provides libraries and tools to help software developers\ncreate robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers,\nlibraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more. Blockly\nhas been used as VPL for the study and to generate / use blocks (commucation,\nsensing etc.). Some applications were generated like teleoperation, SLAM and\nwander etc. In this system, communication between server and client is\nsupported by rosbridge package. Web page connected to ROS which runs on server\nusing roslibjs library. Rosbridge provides a JSON API to ROS functionality for\nnon-ROS programs.\n