Should I define ROS2Message msg type?

[kumaemon0903]

I am applying RAI to my ROS robotic arm.
I have a trouble about creating my new agent.
This is the code where I have a problem.

self.connector.register_callback("/panda_status", self.monitor_status_topic)

def monitor_status_topic(self, msg: ROS2Message):
    """Update the arm readiness status based on the status message."""
    if msg.payload.status == "ready":
        self.arm_ready = True
    else:
        self.arm_ready = False

This means this part needs a /panda_state topic in the shape of ROS2Message.
I created the python script that publishes the topic.

import rclpy
from rclpy.node import Node

module_path = os.path.join("~", "rai_directory", "rai", "src", "rai_core")
sys.path.insert(0, module_path)

from rai.communication.ros2.connectors import ROS2Connector
from rai.communication.ros2.messages import ROS2Message, ROS2HRIMessage

connector = ROS2Connector()

try:
    while True:
        msg_instance = ROS2HRIMessage(payload={"text": "ready"})
        connector.send_message(
            message=msg_instance,  # ROS2Message
            target="/niryoone_status",
            msg_type="rai_interfaces/msg/HRIMessage"
        )
        print('publishing topics')
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    print('ctrl+C')

However, when I use connector.send_message method, it required me a message type so I tried to use ROS2Message type.
But there wasn't ROS2Message.msg file.
Should I make new ROS2Message.msg file?

[maciejmajek]

Hi, thank you for your interest in rai.

ROS2Message is a python class (not a ROS2 message) which allows transferring all sorts of ROS2 messages in similar API.

To use it (e.g., send message) please pass it to the method with payload={} dict of your message.

For example:

connector.send_message(ROS2Message(payload={"data": "Hello from RAI", ...))

The additional required arguments of send message are target (topic name) and msg_type e.g., "std_msgs/msg/String".

Not every part of the api requires explicit message type- receive_message does not need this.