UWRT Drivetrain 2026

6-wheel differential drive controller using ROS2 Control and ODrive motor controllers.

ODrive Integration

This project uses ODrive motor controllers for wheel control. The odrive_base, odrive_node, and odrive_ros2_control packages are based on the official ODrive ROS2 repository:

https://github.com/odriverobotics/ros_odrive

See odrive_example/ for the original BotWheel Explorer example implementation.

Project Structure

drivetrain-2026/
├── diff_drive/              # Main 6-wheel differential drive package
├── odrive_base/             # ODrive CAN communication library
├── odrive_node/             # Standalone ODrive ROS2 node
├── odrive_ros2_control/     # ODrive ros2_control hardware interface
├── odrive_example/          # ODrive BotWheel Explorer example
├── config/                  # FastDDS network configuration
└── scripts/                 # CAN setup utilities

Architecture

Software Drivetrain Architecture Planning

Setup Instructions

Build and Run

# Set ROS domain for multi-robot communication
export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=42

# Build the Docker image
docker-compose build

# Run with real hardware
docker-compose up

# Run with mock hardware (for testing without ODrive)
docker-compose run diff_drive ros2 launch diff_drive diff_drive.launch.py use_mock_hardware:=true

# Enter container shell
docker-compose run diff_drive bash

Verify System

# List ROS2 topics
ros2 topic list

# Check controller status
ros2 control list_controllers

# Send velocity command (unstamped since use_stamped_vel: false)
ros2 topic pub /diff_drive_controller/cmd_vel_unstamped geometry_msgs/msg/Twist "{linear: {x: 0.1}, angular: {z: 0.0}}"

Velocity Convention (ROS right-hand rule)

Command	Direction
linear.x > 0	Forward
linear.x < 0	Backward
angular.z > 0	Turn LEFT (counter-clockwise)
angular.z < 0	Turn RIGHT (clockwise)