Control the Jackal Motors Using a Keyboard#

This section shows how to verify that the Jackal robot is set up correctly, by confirming that the ROS 2 middleware is working and the Jackal robot’s onboard computer can communicate with the Motor Control Unit (MCU).

Ensure that you have set up your Jackal robot as described on the Jackal Intel Robotics page.

Log in as the administrator to run the following steps:

Test whether the Clearpath Robotics services are running on your robot:

ros2 topic info -v /cmd_vel

You need the /cmd_vel topic for controlling the motors, therefore the output of this command must indicate that the /cmd_vel topic is subscribed by the twist_mux node:

Type: geometry_msgs/msg/Twist

Publisher count: 0

Subscription count: 1

Node name: twist_mux
Node namespace: /
Topic type: geometry_msgs/msg/Twist
Endpoint type: SUBSCRIPTION
GID: 01.0f.7f.01.8f.08.4b.ac.01.00.00.00.00.00.12.04.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00
QoS profile:
  Reliability: BEST_EFFORT
  History (Depth): UNKNOWN
  Durability: VOLATILE
  Lifespan: Infinite
  Deadline: Infinite
  Liveliness: AUTOMATIC
  Liveliness lease duration: Infinite

If you do not see this output, there might be an issue with your Clearpath Robotics services installation. See the Jackal Troubleshooting section for debugging hints.

Install the teleop-twist-keyboard ROS 2 package:

Jazzy

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-jazzy-teleop-twist-keyboard

Humble

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-humble-teleop-twist-keyboard

Start the teleop_twist_keyboard command-line tool:
```
ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard
```
Then you can control the robot using these keys:

u

i

o

j

k

l

m

,

.

You can also manually publish to the /cmd_vel topic to move the robot. For example, to move to the x direction, run:

ros2 topic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/msg/Twist \
"linear:
  x: 1.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0
angular:
  x: 0.0
  y: 0.0
  z: 0.0"

Control the Jackal Motors Using a Keyboard#

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