add thruster control to the gui

[TheDinner22]

thruster control

you will use the useTopic hook to interact with two topics:

cmd_wrench, command the entire sub

cmd_wrench has msg type geometry_msgs::msg::Wrench

This topic specifies a wrench for the entire sub. All of the thrusters will respond to this request and the thusters won't stop spinning unless you tell them to (see safety section at the end).

thruster_efforts

thruster_efforts has custom msg type ThrusterEfforts

This thruster commands each thruster individually and is much more safe to use.

safety concerns

cmd_wrench is unsafe

The sub re-applies the most recent cmd_wrench every 500ms. You MUST publish a zero-wrench to cmd_wrench to stop the thrusters, they won't stop automatically.

thruster_efforts is more safe

Sending individual thruster efforts is more safe so long as the most recent wrench was a zero-wrench. If cmd_wrench's last message was "stay still," any thrust request to thruster_efforts will eventually be stopped automatically.

what do we want

we want a way to command individual thrusters (thruster_efforts). The floats range from -1 to 1. Ideally we can command each thruster individually to make sure they are all working before putting the sub into the pool.

we also want a way to publish command wrenches, the most common command wrench we'd want to publish would be the 0 wrench.

[abhinavyarragunta]

I made initial commits to add [-1, 1] float thruster control to UI in thruster-control branch, will make prettier in future commits

[abhinavyarragunta]

Made prettier in UI, changed setup to scale, still need to test with hook

[TheDinner22]

tested at pool, doesn't spin thrusters

[abhinavyarragunta]

Debugged, I think I may have used the wrong msg type for thruster_efforts, ROSbridge does not throw error anymore

[TheDinner22]

doesn't publish anything to thruster_efforts

[abhinavyarragunta]

I will debug further, with in person testing (worked on labeling this week)

[abhinavyarragunta]

labeled