Relay Control Plugin (RQT)

Overview

The Relay Control Plugin is an RQT plugin for ROS1 designed to easily send control commands (on, off, toggle) to relay hardware modules via std_msgs/String topics.

It automatically inspects the global ROS Master graph to discover all existing topics with matching message types, filtering out inactive or unrelated channels.

Works perfectly with our relay control package

Requirements

Install the required ROS packages:

sudo apt install ros-noetic-rqt ros-noetic-rqt-common-plugins

Installation

Clone the repository into your Catkin workspace:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone git@github.com:CJT-Robotics/relay_control_plugin.git

Build the workspace:

cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make

Source the workspace:

source devel/setup.bash

Usage

Launch RQT on the operator station:

rqt --force-discover

After the first successful run, --force-discover is usually no longer necessary.

Load the plugin:

Plugins → CJT-Robotics → Relay Control Panel

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Features

Persistent Settings

The plugin remembers the last selected topic across RQT restarts using the built-in RQT settings infrastructure.

Troubleshooting