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Package Overview

This page provides an overview of all the ROS-Packages used in SEEREP.

General SEEREP Structure

The general structure of SEEREP is schematically illustrated in the following graphic.

SEEREP can be split into two parts, one of which runs on the robot (left box) and one which runs on a server clusters (right box). The communication is handled via gRPC and protocol-buffers (PB) or flatbuffers (FB).

SEEREP-Structure

Packages

In the following, each package will be described in more detail.

seerep-hdf5

The seerep-hdf5 unit provides access to the hdf5 files to store or retrieve data. The unit is split into three packages seerep-hdf5-core, seerep-hdf5-pb and seerep-hdf5-fb. This is to have a server-core which is independent of the message format, so that it's possible to easily switch between PB and FB or any other message format.

  • The main task for the seerep-core is to read UUIDs, bounding boxes (BB), time/semantic information on provided indices from the hdf5-files. The only write operation of the core is to create new hdf5-files. Due to the independence of FB and PB, new communication-messages are added to seerep-msgs (seerep-msgs/core).

  • seerep-hdf5-pb and seerep-hdf5-fb provide methods to read or write point clouds, images and transformations from PB or FB messages.

seerep-srv

The seerep-srv is split into four parts seerep-server, seerep-core and seerep-core-pb, seerep-core-fb.

  • The seerep-server provides the top level interface for the SEEREP server cluster, services which clients can be registered here. The server passes request to the corresponding unit in the layer below (see graphic).

  • The seerep-core-pb / seerep-core-fb writes incoming PB / FB messages to the hdf5 files. In case of a query the seerep-core is asked for the UUIDs of the datasets which match the query parameters.

seerep-msgs

The seerep-msgs package defines all the PB, FB and core messages used in SEEREP.

seerep-ros

seerep-ros provides three packages which run on the robot itself. The seerep_ros_conversions_pb/fb packages simply convert ROS messages to PB/FB and vice versa. The second package seerep_ros_communication is used to save sensor information like images and point clouds on the robot, or in case of a good internet connection to the remote server-cluster. Further, the robot is able to query the server for information to support his understanding of the environment and aid its navigation.

  • The seerep_ros_communication\client is responsible for sending sensor information directly to the remote server.

  • The seerep_ros_communication\querier is used to get information from the remote server.

  • seerep_ros_communication\hdf5-dump is used to save sensor information on a hard drive which is located on the robot.

seerep-com

seerep-com is used to define the gRPC services in PB and FB.