Hi,

We notice that you are using topic names from ROS parameters at the following locations:

Although parameters are usually set in parameter files, they can also be changed by nodes. Specifically, other nodes in the same ROS application can also change the parameters listed above before it’s used, either by accident or intentionally (i.e., by potential attackers). Such changes can lead to failures to receive data of odometry, IMU, etc., which are used as the source of transformation messages, and therefore the robot can not receive the transformation. In addition, if an attacker exists, she can even fool the message_to_tf node to subscribe to wrong topics first, e.g. to /imu_topic_fake, and then forward the IMU data from the correct topic to /imu_topic_fake after modifying the contents, which will generate wrong transformations and lead to dangerous robot behaviors. Similarly, due to the use of parameters on the pose and eular topics, the publishing of pose messages can also be intercepted and even modified. Because ROS is an OSS (open-source software) community, third-party nodes are widely used in ROS applications, usually without complete vetting of their behavior, which gives the opportunity to potentially malicious actors to inject malicious code (e.g, by submitting hypocrite commits like in other OSS systems [1]) to infiltrate the ROS applications that use it (or software supply chain attacks, one of the primary means for real-world attackers today [2]).

We understand that using parameters to set topic names brings flexibility. Still, for the purpose of security, we strongly suggest that you avoid such vulnerable programming patterns if possible. For example, to avoid the exposure of this specific vulnerability, you may consider alternatives like remapping, which is designed for configuring names when launching the nodes.

[1] Q. Wu and K. Lu, “On the feasibility of stealthily introducing vulnerabilities in open-source software via hypocrite commits,” 2021, https://linuxreviews.org/images/d/d9/OpenSourceInsecurity.pdf.
[2] Supply chain attacks are the hacker’s new favourite weapon. and the threat is getting bigger. https://www.zdnet.com/article/supply-chain-attacks-are-the-hackers-new-favourite-weapon-and-the-threat-is-getting-bigger/.

I found this library via your post on ROS answers [1]. At first glance it seems like a really nice and powerful framework. As you mentioned in your answer one of the current issues is the lack of documentation. I believe this library could be very valuable to a number of people including myself if there was at least a little bit of help to get started. In my opinion the following documentation would be helpful with in order of decreasing immediate usefulness.

1. General overview over architecture of framework.
2. Tutorial how to use the current components.
3. Tutorial how to extend various parts of the system with new/altered components.
4. Code documentation of classes/functions/etc...

I know time is most always scarce, but if you get round to creating some initial documentation, maybe you can consider this order of priority (to the extend you agree with it of course).

Cheers,
Nikolaus

[1] http://answers.ros.org/question/39790/robot_pose_ekf-and-gps/

Hello,

any hope to get this released for noetic?

Hi,

I've successfully (with some pain and minor modifications, but...) built desktop_full on OS X Mavericks. However, after adding the hector_quadrotor package and it dependencies, I started getting problems. Here is the command that I ran:

raspberry:catkin_ws rasit$ VERBOSE=1 ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --pkg hector_pose_estimation_core -j1

Any help is greatly appreciated.

--Rasit

Hi Im fusing IMU and Pressure Sensor . But I got the following error

[ERROR] [1632986676.837052390, 150.592000000]: Client [/hector_pose_estimation] wants topic /rexrov2/pressure to have datatype/md5sum [geometry_msgs/PointStamped/c63aecb41bfdfd6b7e1fac37c7cbe7bf], but our version has [sensor_msgs/FluidPressure/804dc5cea1c5306d6a2eb80b9833befe]. Dropping connection.

Any help how to transform sensor_msgs/FluidPressure to geometry_msgs/PointStamped so hector_pose_estimation can use it?

I'm using the catkin branch of this repo, on a ROS indigo/Ubuntu trusty system. I'm sending IMU and Odometry information to message_to_tf using the libhector_gazebo_ros_imu and libgazebo_ros_p3d plugins. The base_link -> base_stabilized tf published by message_to_tf switches intermittently between

--
  - 
    header: 
      seq: 0
      stamp: 
        secs: 8
        nsecs: 130000000
      frame_id: base_stabilized
    child_frame_id: base_link
    transform: 
      translation: 
        x: nan
        y: 1.57918518582e-316
        z: 6.95335086244e-310
      rotation: 
        x: -9.66511399003e-05
        y: 0.000187435422708
        z: 1.81158476653e-08
        w: 0.999999977763

---

and

--
  - 
    header: 
      seq: 0
      stamp: 
        secs: 8
        nsecs: 95000000
      frame_id: base_stabilized
    child_frame_id: base_link
    transform: 
      translation: 
        x: 0.0
        y: 0.0
        z: 0.0
      rotation: 
        x: -7.33904804506e-08
        y: 2.31638185891e-08
        z: 1.70000377533e-15
        w: 1.0

---

After some investigation, in the part of imuCallback that creates this transform, the translation is never set. Adding a setOrigin(tf::Vector3(0.0, 0.0, 0.0)) resolves the issue. Does this make sense as a fix?

Hello all
I am trying to fuse imu, poseupdate which published from hector_slam using 2D Hokuyo lidar and 1D lidar for heigt measuerement using hector_localization.
At first I got a error meassge "Invalid state, resetting..." and I solved it with edit poseupdate.cpp (I think covariance and H matrix at updating Yaw was problem).
After that, it looks algorith works fine, but when robot start to move, roll and ptich of base_link and /pose are become tilted. And vector x, y of /linear acceleration bias goes larger and larger.
Attitude of /sensor_pose looks fine that I don`t think subscribing IMU problem or wrong frame problem..
And when I check the debug messages, "updating with system model gyro or accelerometer" results shows just 0 (dt * f(x) ] [ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ...]. Is it relavant?

If someone knows the answer, please let me know.. I really want make it move...

Best regards,

We have robotic platform working properly with robot_pose_ekf and robot_localization. We want to compare the performance of hector_localization package with these SW packages. But when I execute the hector_localization with IMU topic and poseupdate topic from odometry data, I got the error message " Invalid state, resetting". Is there any example working bag file(IMU + odometry data via poseupdate) for hector_localization? Could you please provide me any suggestion or hint about the reason of this error message?
Thanks for your support.

Best Regards
Min Latt

Our quadrotor has localication problem when we use only hector_slam without odometry. We want to apply hector_localication but we are confused how to do it.

Our first question is how to use ahrs topic and rollpitch topic. Their data look same. Whats the differencess?

And also i want to know how to entegrate gps topic in indoor environment. Because no gps signal in indoor.

Thank you .

I'm running ROS Noetic on Ubuntu 20.04, and I couldn't build with the commands in the README. Also, my source directory is catkin_ws/src, and also i couldn't clone through the command in the README (maybe since I hadn't logged in to git, but copy pasting the link to the repo instead of the link they put, is the simple fix). So to anyone reading this with a similar problem, just replace the --source flag with --only-pkg-with-deps, invoked from your catkin_ws folder is your workspace is structured like mine

Hello,

New to hector_localization, I have used hector_mapping for the last couple of months and I was wondering if it is possible to fuse slam_out_pose and odometry as input to hector_localization to obtain a fused pose. I am having issues with localization on corridors, which fusing odometry into the mix may help somewhat.

Any pointers into this issue will be greatly appreciated.

CMakeLists.txt is missing an install step for hector_pose_estimation_nodelets.xml. I believe that this is the fix:

install(FILES hector_pose_estimation_nodelets.xml
DESTINATION ${CATKIN_PACKAGE_SHARE_DESTINATION}
)

Would it be possible to release the package 'message_to_tf' for melodic?

I'm using the hector localization ROS package to take the IMU data from my phone, streamed into a ROS Imu message and reconstructing the 6DOF pose. No other sensors are used.

I can get attitude just fine, but the translation of /sensor_pose (or any other pose or tf topic) remains 0 for all time... I was hoping you could help me figure out why this is. Maybe I'm not setting the Imu frame correctly?

I'm using ros-indigo and catkin_make'd the source from scratch.
Below is the source for a python script publishing my phone's imu data

import rospy
from sensor_msgs.msg import Imu
import socket, traceback, string
import pdb
from sys import stderr


host = ''
port = 5555
s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_REUSEADDR, 1)
s.setsockopt(socket.SOL_SOCKET, socket.SO_BROADCAST, 1)
s.bind((host, port))

message, address = s.recvfrom(8192)
t0 = float(message.split(",")[0]) #initial time
print(t0)

def talker():
    pub = rospy.Publisher('raw_imu', Imu, queue_size=10)
    rospy.init_node('android_imu')
    rate = rospy.Rate(300) #this number must be very large, larger than max hz so that the
                           #rospy node always gets most recent packet 


    while not rospy.is_shutdown():
        imu_msg = Imu() #init imu msg
        imu_msg.orientation_covariance = 9*[-1] #no orientation info, so must set all to -1
        imu_msg.angular_velocity_covariance = 9*[0]
        imu_msg.linear_acceleration_covariance = 9*[0]
        imu_msg.header.frame_id = 'base_frame'

        
        try:
            #get data from android phone
            message, address = s.recvfrom(8192)
            data = message.split( "," )
            # extract data
            t = float(data[0]) #time
            #pdb.set_trace()
            imu_msg.header.stamp.secs = t
            sensorID = int(data[1])
            if sensorID==3:     # sensor ID for the eccelerometer
                ax, ay, az = data[2], data[3], data[4]
            if len(data) > 5:
                sensorID = int(data[5])
                if sensorID == 4: #sensor ID for gyroscope
                    gx, gy, gz = data[6], data[7], data[8] #angular acceleration
                else:
                    gx, gy, gz = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0 #if no data, just set to zero
                    imu_msg.angular_velocity_covariance = 9*[-1]
            
        except:
            print('except')
            ax, ay, az, gx, gy, gz = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
            imu_msg.angular_velocity_covariance = 9*[-1]
            imu_msg.linear_acceleration_covariance = 9*[-1]
        #put into imu msg
        imu_msg.linear_acceleration.x = float(ax)
        imu_msg.linear_acceleration.y = float(ay)
        imu_msg.linear_acceleration.z = float(az)
        imu_msg.angular_velocity.x = float(gx)
        imu_msg.angular_velocity.y = float(gy)
        imu_msg.angular_velocity.z = float(gz)
        #publish data
        pub.publish(imu_msg)
        #sleep
        rate.sleep()


if __name__ == '__main__':
	try:
		talker()
	except rospy.ROSInterruptException:
		pass

Best,
Toby

Hi, I am unable to build Hector localization on Yosemite. One of the errors faced was the sincos use which was easily bypassed by the __sincos function in OSX.

Another issue faced is an error in a Macro which seems fine, any clues on how to make it work with OSX? http://pastebin.com/Qxcv2QNg

Any pointers would be great.