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Mastering ROS 2 for Robotics Programming

You're reading from   Mastering ROS 2 for Robotics Programming Design, build, simulate, and prototype complex robots using the Robot Operating System 2

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jul 2025
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781836209010
Length 576 pages
Edition 4th Edition
Concepts
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Authors (2):
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Lentin Joseph Lentin Joseph
Author Profile Icon Lentin Joseph
Lentin Joseph
Jonathan Cacace Jonathan Cacace
Author Profile Icon Jonathan Cacace
Jonathan Cacace
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Toc

Table of Contents (22) Chapters Close

Preface
1. Part I: ROS 2 Programming and Simulation
2. Introduction to ROS 2 FREE CHAPTER 3. Getting Started with ROS 2 Programming 4. Implementing ROS 2 Concepts 5. Working with Robot 3D Modeling in ROS 2 6. Simulating Robots in a Realistic Environment 7. Part II: ROS 2 Applications: Navigation, Manipulation, and Control
8. Controlling Robots Using the ros2_control Package 9. Implementing ROS 2 Applications Using BehaviorTree.CPP 10. ROS 2 Navigation Stack: Nav2 11. Robot Manipulation Using MoveIt 2 12. Working with ROS 2 and Perception Stack 13. Part III: Advanced Applications and Machine Learning
14. Aerial Robotics and ROS 2 15. Designing and Programming a DIY Mobile Robot from Scratch 16. Testing, Continuous Integration, and Continuous Deployment with ROS 2 17. Interfacing Large Language Models with ROS 2 18. ROS 2 and Deep Reinforcement Learning 19. Implementing ROS 2 Visualization and Simulation Plugins 20. Other Books You May Enjoy
21. Index

Introduction to URDF and Xacro

In ROS 2, we use the URDF/Xacro format to represent the robot model. URDF is an XML format, and inside URDF, there are tags to describe the robot’s structure, kinematics, appearances, collision, and basic dynamics parameters. It can also hold simulation tags, which can be used for robot simulators like Gazebo.

Writing URDF can sometimes be lengthy and complex. It doesn’t offer any programmability. We need to add hardcoded values for joints and links. That’s where Xacro comes in. Xacro (or XML Macros) is a tool in ROS 2 to simplify complex URDF files. As the name suggests, it enables us to use macros/functions inside URDF.

Along with macros, we can use variables and conditional statements with XML, making it easier to build, reuse, and modify large robot models. Using Xacro, we can create reusable templates and parameters to make URDF development easier. After creating the URDF model using Xacro, we will use the Xacro tool...

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