Mini Pupper Fleet Control System

This ROS 2 package enables multi-robot operation for a group of Mini Pupper 2 robots, with centralized command distribution and individual robot pose estimation.

The system combines fleet-level command coordination, IMU-based Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) pose estimation with attitude correction, and individual robot behaviour control to enable scalable multi-robot deployments.

Features

• Centralized Fleet Control with /cmd_vel to distributed robot commands
• SE(3) Extended Kalman Filter for robust pose estimation with IMU attitude correction
• Individual Robot Behaviour with heading control and velocity regulation
• Scalable Architecture supporting 1 to N robots with namespace isolation
• Real-time Control at 66.7 Hz with configurable parameters

Quick Start

Multi-Robot Fleet - 3 robot example

Robot Terminals (SSH to each robot individually):

# Robot 1 SSH Terminal
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mini_pupper_bringup bringup_with_stanford_controller.launch.py multi_robot:=true robot_namespace:=robot1

# Robot 2 SSH Terminal
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mini_pupper_bringup bringup_with_stanford_controller.launch.py multi_robot:=true robot_namespace:=robot2

# Robot 3 SSH Terminal
source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mini_pupper_bringup bringup_with_stanford_controller.launch.py multi_robot:=true robot_namespace:=robot3

Host PC Terminal 1 - Fleet Controller:

source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mini_pupper_fleet fleet_controller.launch.py robot_count:=3

Host PC Terminal 2 - Teleop:

source ~/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard

Total Terminal Count: 5 terminals (3 robot SSH + 2 host PC)

This scales to any number of Mini Puppers: run the Stanford bringup on an SSH terminal for each robot, then pass the number of robots you wish to control to the fleet controller.

If you want a Mini Pupper to be independent of the fleet, the fleet controller creates nodes for namespaces robot1..robotN (based on robot_count). Give any independent robot a namespace greater than N (e.g., robot4 or higher when robot_count:=3).

Complete Node Hierarchy

After launching, the system hierarchy looks like:

Host PC:
├── fleet_controller_node (global)
├── robot1/imu_ekf_node
├── robot1/robot_behaviour_node
├── robot2/imu_ekf_node  
├── robot2/robot_behaviour_node
├── robot3/imu_ekf_node
├── robot3/robot_behaviour_node
└── teleop_twist_keyboard (global)

Robot 1:
└── robot1/ (Stanford Controller)

Robot 2:  
└── robot2/ (Stanford Controller)

Robot 3:
└── robot3/ (Stanford Controller)

Architecture Overview

A simple hierarchy separates fleet-level coordination from per-robot control:

Global Command Input (/cmd_vel)
            v
Fleet Controller (no namespace)
            v
/fleet_command
            v
robot1/: imu_ekf_node + robot_behaviour_node -> robot_command
robot2/: imu_ekf_node + robot_behaviour_node -> robot_command
robot3/: imu_ekf_node + robot_behaviour_node -> robot_command

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