Installation Instructions

To install ROS Indigo open a terminal window and run the commands

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop-full

Note: if you already have another full version of ROS installed, the full desktop indigo install will require the removal of multiple existing packages in order resolve dependencies. This includes your current version of Gazebo and related packages.

Next, we need to create a directory for a catkin workspace in order to build any new packages, initialize it as a catkin workspace, and build the workspace.

mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
cd catkin_ws/src/
catkin_init_workspace
cd ..
catkin_build

The workspace can now be sourced to append the proper paths to ROS environment variables.

source devel/setup.bash

It is helpful-especially if you have multiple versions of ROS on your system-to add the following lines to your .bashrc file. This makes setting the proper ROS distribution much less time-consuming. Alternatively, if you only plan on using ROS Indigo, you can add only the lines inside the set_indigo function to automatically use Indigo when you open a new terminal window or tab.

Open a terminal and run the command:

nano ~/.bashrc

Then add the following lines:

set_indigo () {
    export ROBOT=$HOSTNAME
    source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash
    source ~/$workspace/devel/setup.bash
    export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=/home/$user/$workspace/src:/opt/ros/indigo/share:/opt/ros/indigo/stacks:/home/$user/rosbuild_ws/vicon/ros
}

IMPORTANT: Replace $workspace with the name of your catkin workspace and $user with your username on your machine.

Once set_indigo has been added to .bashrc, save the file. You only need to do this step once!

Next, navigate to your new catkin workspace and clone the repository into catkin_ws/src/. Do the same for "vicon_bridge" and "rosbridge_suite."

Then navigate to the launch folder, catkin_ws/src/pomdp_experiment/launch/, and change lines 9 & 10 in the startup.sh file to your username and workspace name.

user="ian"
workspace="catkin_ws"

Once you have everything you need in the src folder, you are ready to build the workspace.

cd ../
catkin_make

If there are errors, there may be dependencies that need to be resolved before the workspace can be built. Do this until the workspace builds with no errors.

You should now be ready to run the experiment. Please see the run instructions page next.