What we have today does work, but it's a rat's nest to modify and maintain.

Proposed approach:

• create specific packages containing roslaunch scripts and parameters for each major robot component
• each will have the minimum dependencies, completeness verified by roslaunch-check unit tests
• each different segbot base or major component will have its own launch package
• common subsystems will also have them, e.g.:
  • segbot simulation
  • segbot arm(s)
  • navigation
  • gmapping
  • graphical user interface components: rviz, rqt, diagnostics
  • basic features like logging, logical_translator, multi-level maps, KR execution, and virtour

Each of these launch packages can be used as an explicit whitelist parameter for catkin build, to only compile the packages needed on that platform or configuration. As much as possible, each robot should self-discover the components it needs.

This will require much experimentation, which will mostly be done in a separate branch based on our Kinetic software.

We may merge some of the top-level packages into the Kinetic branch early, so it's easier to do partial compilation of the whole system. Right now, compiling bwi_launch compiles everything, which is sometimes useful, but not always convenient.

@justinhart, @nickswalker, @harely22, @warnellg, @rdelfin, @FernandezR:
Comments? Suggestions?