STARDOS Setup

STARDOS is currently on ROS2 version Humble. ROS2 versions mirror Ubuntu versions- so we'll need a machine with Ubuntu 22.04 installed to run Humble.

Automatic installation

There exist a collection of scripts to set up a STARDOS environment. They are found in the STARDOS quickstart repository. You should only need to run one of them. Which one to run depends on your use case.

• computer-setup.bash is meant to set up a headless payload or copilot STARDOS machine on hardware you intend to use on a drone.
• simulation-setup.bash is meant to set up a simulation or even a ground station.

The computer-setup.bash script removes netplan and sets up a custom network stack allowing a payload and a copilot to talk together without the use of a router. Because of this, it is not ideal to use this script for a computer that still needs to connect to the internet normally. simulation-setup.bash, on the other hand, just installs STARDOS's dependencies, pulls some STARDOS packages, and installs (but does not enable) the STARDOS systemd services.

Manual installation

You can also get everything yourself using the following steps.

Installing 22.04

If you're setting up STARDOS for testing, you may want to use 22.04 Desktop.

If you're setting up on a payload, VM, or other headless STARDOS machine, you'll want 22.04 Server.

To start off, you'll probably want to remove any snaps from the system. They add bloat and interop poorly with other programs. The process needs to be updated now and again, but this guide can show you the general idea.

Install the version required for your hardware as normal. Make sure you install python and pip, as well as some common build dependencies:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip build-essential

Installing ROS2

Next, install Humble from the instructions provided on the ROS2 wiki. Make sure you install the ros-humble-desktop-full package to include build dependencies like colcon.

Make sure you set your environment variables for ROS2 by adding the setup.bash (matching your shell's extension) to your shell's rc file.

Installing STARDOS

There are multiple ways to acquire the STARDOS source files.

Master STARDOS repository

Clone the aggieair/STARDOS repo to the VM. You may need to add a new SSH key to your account first, to validate who you are. This may not be fully up-to-date, and it may not be comprehensive but it can work.

git clone git@github.com:AggieAir/STARDOS.git && git submodule init && git submodule update

After this, try running colcon build in the root directory. If you receive an error like /usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/install.py:34: SetuptoolsDeprecationWarning: setup.py install is deprecated. Use build and pip and other standards-based tools., follow the instructions on this ROS Answers question to downgrade the setuptools package to the appropriate version.

Individual STARDOS repositories

You can also download STARDOS packages individually by placing them all in /opt/stardos/workspace/src. All STARDOS repositories are hosted on GitHub and owned by AggieAir. They all begin with stardos_, except for the two libraries.

Note that sometimes a drone will contain multiple computers. Typically, in this scenario, one computer will be designated as the copilot and will handle all communication with the ground station and the other will be designated as the payload and will handle the data collection. The two will communicate over an ethernet connection. If there is only one computer on the aircraft, it will fill both the payload and copilot roles. This is called a hybrid configuration.

At the very minimum, you will need:

• stardos_interfaces: provides the ROS interfaces needed for STARDOS nodes to communicate with each other.
• stardos_control: the defining program that runs on a STARDOS computer. Starts up all other STARDOS nodes according to a mission configuration.
• stardos_utilities: contains scripts, configuration files, and systemd service files used by stardos nodes.

For a computer that will run on a drone, you will also need:

• stardos_settings_server: provides an HTTP server for configuring the computer.
• stardos_system_status: provides a STARDOS node that reports the status of the computer, viewable on the ground station.

For ground stations and copilot (or hybrid) computers, you will need:

• stardos_datalink: provides a means for systems to communicate with each other across a radio link.

For payload (or hybrid) computers, you will additionally need:

• libstardos: a C++ library that can power a data collection or processing node
• pylibstardos: the python version of libstardos
• stardos_capture_groups: a collection of capture group nodes.
• stardos_tagger: a node that uses a stream of data from an autopilot to tag images with data bout where the image was taken.
• stardos_writer: a node that writes data to the disk, typically at the end of a pipeline.