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Developing Web Interfaces for ROS 2: A 4-Month Self-Study Course

Course Syllabus

\Course Description\ \This comprehensive 4-month self-study course is designed for motivated beginners and intermediate learners eager to bridge the gap between web technologies and robotics using ROS 2. Participants will gain practical skills in developing interactive and intuitive web-based interfaces to monitor, control, and visualize ROS 2-powered robots. Through a blend of theoretical understanding and hands-on projects, learners will master the essential tools and techniques to create powerful web applications for real-world robotics scenarios.\

\Primary Learning Objectives\ \Upon successful completion of this course, learners will be able to:\ \ \Understand the fundamental concepts of web development and their application in robotics.\ \Grasp the core principles of ROS 2 communication, including topics, services, actions, and parameters.\ \Utilize ROS 2 web tools and libraries (e.g., \rosbridge\_suite\, \ros2-web-bridge\, \roslibjs\) to establish communication between web applications and ROS 2.\ \Develop interactive web interfaces using modern front-end frameworks (e.g., React, Vue.js) for robot monitoring and control.\ \Implement data visualization techniques for displaying sensor data and robot states in a web browser.\ \Design and deploy secure and robust web applications for robotics.\ \

\Necessary Materials\ \ \A computer with a modern operating system (Ubuntu 20.04+ recommended for ROS 2 compatibility).\ \Internet connection.\ \Text editor or Integrated Development Environment (IDE) (e.g., VS Code).\ \Web browser (e.g., Chrome, Firefox).\ \Basic understanding of Linux command line.\ \Basic programming knowledge (Python and/or JavaScript recommended).\ \Familiarity with fundamental web concepts (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).\ \Access to a ROS 2 environment (physical robot or simulation like Gazebo).\ \

Course Content: 14 Weekly Lessons

Week 1-2: Foundations of Web Development for Robotics

\Week 1: Introduction to Web Technologies for Robotics\ \ \\Learning Objectives:\
\ \Understand the role of web interfaces in modern robotics.\ \Identify key web technologies relevant to robotics (HTML, CSS, JavaScript).\ \Set up a basic web development environment.\ \ \ \\Key Vocabulary:\
\ \\HTML:\ HyperText Markup Language, the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser.\ \\CSS:\ Cascading Style Sheets, used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language like HTML.\ \\JavaScript:\ A high-level, interpreted programming language that conforms to the ECMAScript specification, primarily used to make web pages interactive.\ \\Front-end:\ The part of a website or web application that the user interacts with directly.\ \\Back-end:\ The part of a website or web application that processes data and manages the server-side operations.\ \ \ \\Content:\
\Web interfaces are becoming increasingly crucial in robotics, offering a flexible and accessible way to interact with robots from anywhere with an internet connection. Imagine controlling a robot arm from your tablet, or visualizing sensor data in real-time on a web dashboard. This lesson will introduce you to the fundamental building blocks of the web: HTML for structuring content, CSS for styling, and JavaScript for adding interactivity. We’ll explore why these technologies are essential for robotics, enabling remote operation, user-friendly dashboards, and distributed control systems. We’ll also guide you through setting up your development environment, including a code editor and a web browser, ensuring you’re ready to build.\ \ \\Practical Hands-on Example:\ Create a simple HTML page with a title, a paragraph of text, and a button. Use CSS to style the background color and the button. Use JavaScript to change the text of the paragraph when the button is clicked.\ \

\Week 2: Asynchronous JavaScript and APIs\ \ \\Learning Objectives:\
\ \Understand asynchronous programming concepts in JavaScript.\ \Learn about JSON and how it’s used for data exchange.\ \Explore the basics of RESTful APIs and their relevance.\ \ \ \\Key Vocabulary:\
\ \\Asynchronous Programming:\ A programming paradigm that allows a program to start a potentially long-running task and still be responsive to other events.\ \\Callback:\ A function passed as an argument to another function, which is then invoked inside the outer function to complete some kind of routine or action.\ \\Promise:\ An object representing the eventual completion or failure of an asynchronous operation and its resulting value.\ \\Async/Await:\ Syntactic sugar built on Promises, making asynchronous code easier to write and read.\ \\JSON:\ JavaScript Object Notation, a lightweight data-interchange format.\ \\API:\ Application Programming Interface, a set of defined methods of communication between various software components.\ \\RESTful API:\ An API that conforms to the constraints of REST architectural style.\ \ \ \\Content:\
\Robotics applications often require real-time data exchange and control, which necessitates asynchronous communication. This lesson dives into asynchronous JavaScript, introducing concepts like callbacks, Promises, and the more modern \async/await\ syntax. These tools are vital for handling data that arrives over time, such as sensor readings from a robot or responses from a control command. We’ll also cover JSON (JavaScript Object Notation), the standard format for data exchange on the web, and introduce RESTful APIs, which provide a structured way for web applications to communicate with servers and, by extension, potentially with robot back-ends.\ \ \\Practical Hands-on Example:\ Create a simple JavaScript application that simulates fetching robot sensor data asynchronously using \setTimeout\ and Promises. Display the “sensor data” on the web page once it’s “received.”\ \

Week 3-5: Introduction to ROS 2 for Web Developers

\Week 3: ROS 2 Core Concepts for Web Integration\ \ \\Learning Objectives:\
\ \Recall fundamental ROS 2 concepts: nodes, topics, messages, services, actions.\ \Understand the importance of \rosbridge\_suite\ for web integration.\ \Set up a basic ROS 2 environment with \rosbridge\_suite\.\ \ \ \\Key Vocabulary:\
\ \\ROS 2:\ Robot Operating System 2, a flexible framework for writing robot software.\ \\Node:\ An executable process that performs computations.\ \\Topic:\ A named bus over which nodes exchange messages.\ \\Message:\ A data structure used for communication between nodes over topics.\ \\Service:\ A request/response communication mechanism.\ \\Action:\ A long-running, goal-oriented communication mechanism.\ \\rosbridge\_suite:\ A collection of ROS packages that provide a JSON API to ROS functionality for non-ROS programs.\ \\WebSocket:\ A communication protocol that provides full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection.\ \ \ \\Content:\
\Before we connect our web interfaces to ROS 2, it’s crucial to have a solid understanding of ROS 2’s core communication paradigms. This lesson will quickly review ROS 2 nodes, topics (publishers and subscribers), services (client and server), and actions (client and server goals). The star of this section will be \rosbridge\_suite\, a critical package that enables communication between ROS 2 and non-ROS environments, including web browsers, by translating ROS 2 messages into JSON and vice-versa over WebSockets. We will guide you through installing and configuring \rosbridge\_suite\ in your ROS 2 environment.\ \ \\Practical Hands-on Example:\ Install ROS 2 and \rosbridge\_suite\. Start \rosbridge\_server\ and verify that it’s running. Use a simple WebSocket client in your browser’s developer console to connect to \rosbridge\_server\.\ \

\Week 4: Publishing and Subscribing to ROS 2 Topics from the Web\ \ \\Learning Objectives:\
\ \Publish messages to ROS 2 topics from a web application using \roslibjs\.\ \Subscribe to ROS 2 topics and display received messages in a web interface.\ \Understand the JSON message format used by