ROS with LEGO Spike

Abstract

Teaching mobile robotics algorithms through hands-on hardware exercises can be both costly and resource-intensive. This work addresses this challenge by introducing an affordable differential drive vehicle constructed from LEGO components. An onboard Raspberry Pi, equipped with a camera and a Build HAT, provides standard ROS2 interfaces. An out-standing feature of the design is the calculation of laser ranger data from camera images, which enables the investigation of sensor and motion models, as well as probabilistic approaches for self-localization and mapping. The paper presents a prototype together with statistical results on the motion and sensor models within the real and simulated environment.