Installation
This remarkable company of robots Ubiquity Robotics distributes an interesting pair of images for development (Virtualbox & Raspberry) image based on Ubuntu for Pi and ROS preinstalled.
- https://downloads.ubiquityrobotics.com/pi.html
- https://ubiquity-pi-image.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/2019-02-19-ubiquity-xenial-lxde-raspberry-pi.img.xz but later versions probably could be used
- Create SD card, any system can be used. Here an example https://www.balena.io/etcher/ The Raspberry is ready to boot!
- At today, latest is workstation-1.0.1 https://downloads.ubiquityrobotics.com/vm.html
- Run the VM, on windows follow instructions in Virtual Box with the ubiquity image
- user : ubuntu
- Pwd : ubuntu
NOTE: Here we assume you have using the ubiquity flash.
NOTE: When the Raspberry Pi boots for the first time, it resizes the file system to fill the SD card, this can make the first boot take some time.
On a Pi3, our image comes up as a Wifi access point. The **SSID **is ubiquityrobotXXXX where XXXX is part of the MAC address. The wifi password is robotseverywhere.
Once connected, it is possible to log into the Pi with ssh ubuntu@10.42.0.1 with a password of ubuntu. If you connect up a keyboard and mouse enter the password ubuntu at the prompt.
If you are not running on one of ubiquity robots run
sudo systemctl disable magni-base
to ensure that startup scripts get disabled.
Some tools that can be used in the next steps to login etc.
IP Scanner
This can be a good friend to found the Pi the first time
https://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/
Putty
Common Terminal multi-protocol
Xserver
on windows, useful to use the own pc to open window (needed to connect any graphic window to the development pc) https://sourceforge.net/projects/vcxsrv/
Remember in your putty session use X11 Forwarding to visualize on your pc.
WinSCP
To transfer/edit file / from like in a file system (filezilla like) https://winscp.net/eng/download.php
This is your PC, in order to control ROS you need to be in an enabled ROS system, like the virtual machine suggested in this page.
Start the virtual machine and login.
SSH to your embedded robot computer and follow the instructions.
The system is configured as 2WD, Lidar not yet configured. If you want to change follow the indication in the present Appendix
After ROS installation, create and configure your ROS environment.
If interested in details, have a look to: Creating a ROS Workspace
ROS needs to know which catkin workspace you want to use to find the right packages and dependencies. It would be convenient to automate this every time you open a new terminal your embedded robot computer.
Remove original workspace from ROS
rm -rf ~/catkin_ws
Please note: Workspace used in this project: pluto_ws
Then create the new workspace
mkdir -p ~/pluto_ws/src
cd ~/pluto_ws/
catkin_make
echo "source ~/pluto_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Check the process was successful by printing an environment variable
echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
Something similar should appear (there must be no more reference to catkin_ws
/home/ubuntu/pluto_ws/src:/opt/ros/kinetic/share
On your embedded robot computer, install the packages you need for configuration and visualization.
On your embedded robot computer, install the packages you need for configuration and visualization:
cd ~/pluto_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/lawrence-iviani/plutobot
At this point enter in plutobot/install_script to install the needed environment and check a couple of things
cd plutobot/install_script
if it is the first time during installation use the argument update (this will also take care to update the entire Ubuntu, ROS, Teensy FW). We are assuming that the board has access to the internet.
./install update
Otherwise is enough
./install
Quick check, try to run
roslaunch plutobot minimal.launch
you should see start with something like this.
ubuntu@ubiquityrobot:~/pluto_ws/src/plutobot$ roslaunch plutobot minimal.launch
... logging to /home/ubuntu/.ros/log/6ffd12dc-d0dc-11e5-8188-b827eb8dbecd/roslaunch-ubiquityrobot-4695.log
Checking log directory for disk usage. This may take awhile.
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Done checking log file disk usage. Usage is <1GB.
Great! The installation was successful!
Note For Raspberry Pis 2 it is recommended to have a swap file to prevent the initial build from failing. You can disable this once the installation is done.
sudo apt-get install dphys-swapfile
Change Installation configuration (see 1.3 in https://github.com/linorobot/linorobot/wiki/1.-Getting-Started ) Run the install file where:
base = 2wd
sensor = xv11e
./install base sensor
example:
./install 2wd xv11
Do take note that for IP based Hokuyo lidars, you will be prompted to key in the IP address (Default: 192.168.0.10). For USB based Hokuyo lidars, press 'Enter' to skip.