Webots Rust Tauri Control App

A high-performance application for controlling a KUKA youBot in Webots using a Rust-based controller and a Tauri-based web interface.

Features

• 8-Directional Mecanum Control: Support for forward, backward, strafing, and diagonal movement.
• Real-time Sensor Visualization:
  • Front Camera: Compressed JPEG stream with frame-skipping optimization.
  • 180° LiDAR: SICK sensor visualization with radial grid mapping.
• High Performance:
  • WebSocket-based low-latency communication (Port 9001).
  • Throttled telemetry updates to minimize UI lag.
  • Deterministic frame skipping for camera feed.

Tech Stack

• Webots: Robot simulation environment.
• Rust: Controller logic and WebSocket server.
• Tauri: Cross-platform desktop UI framework.
• Tailwind CSS: Modern glassmorphism UI design.
• Tokio / Tungstenite: Asynchronous WebSocket handling.

Project Structure

• webots-controller/: Rust source for the Webots controller.
  • src/main.rs: Core logic for sensors and motors.
  • src/webots_api.rs: FFI bindings for Webots C API.
• ui/: Frontend application.
  • index.html: Main UI with sensor visualization and control logic.
• worlds/: Webots world files.
  • youbot_control.wbt: Configured world with KUKA youBot.

Getting Started

1. Open Webots: Load the world file in worlds/youbot_control.wbt.
2. Build Controller: Run cargo build in webots-controller/.
3. Run UI: Launch the Tauri application or open ui/index.html (if using a local dev server).
4. Control: Use WASD or the UI buttons to move the robot.

Optimization Details

• Camera: Images are converted from BGRA to RGB, then encoded as JPEG (quality 30) on the Rust side to reduce network payload by ~90%.
• LiDAR: Points are processed and sent as a float array, rendered on a high-performance 2D canvas.
• UI: CSS backdrop-filter was removed to ensure smooth rendering even on lower-end hardware.