Robot Voice Control – ROS 2 Humble

A hands-free interface that lets you speak high-level commands (“rotate moving jaw 10 degrees”) and watch your robot execute them live in RViz 2.

Features

• Natural-language → structured motion commands (LLM-powered)
• URDF / Xacro loader with mesh-URI resolution
• One-click RViz 2 visualisation (auto-generated launch file)
• Joint-state publisher for real-time animation
• urdf_to_dict() helper for quick introspection/debugging
• Pytest test-suite (colcon test-compatible) to guard against regressions

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Folder layout

robot_voice_control/
├── launch/
│   └── display.launch.py          # starts RSP + RViz 2
├── scripts/
│   └── main.py                    # choose model, speak commands
├── urdf/                          # drop your .urdf / .xacro models here
├── tests/
│   └── test_urdf_to_summary.py    # unit tests
├── urdf_to_summary.py             # load_robot() + urdf_to_dict()

Prerequisites

Dependency	Version	Install / Notes
ROS 2	Humble Hawksbill	sudo apt install ros-humble-desktop && source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
Python	≥ 3.10	Comes with Ubuntu 22.04
urdfpy	≥ 0.0.25	pip install -U urdfpy
xacro	any recent	Already bundled with ROS 2
pytest	optional (tests)	pip install -U pytest

Building & running

cd ~/solo_robot_ws
colcon build --packages-select robot_voice_control
source install/setup.bash

# interactive CLI
ros2 run robot_voice_control main

1. Choose a URDF/Xacro from the list.
2. RViz 2 pops up with the model already visible.
3. Enter voice-style or typed commands to move joints.

Add your own robot

1. Copy my_robot.urdf (or .xacro + meshes) into robot_voice_control/urdf/.
2. Re-build (colcon build …).
3. Launch CLI and pick the new entry.
4. Mesh URIs (package://…) are resolved automatically—no extra packaging needed.

Testing

pytest -q                       # quick local check
colcon test --packages-select robot_voice_control
colcon test-result --verbose

Known quirks

• QStandardPaths: wrong permissions … – harmless Qt warning.
• Ensure one joint-state publisher at a time (the Python helper starts its own).
• If RViz displays only a grid, set Fixed Frame to your base link (e.g. base).

Contributing

• Fork → feature branch.
• Add/update unit tests in tests/.
• colcon test – all green.
• PR with description.