mp_host_setup

Host computer Docker setup for interfacing with a Mini Pupper over a network or just running simulations locally.

Setup

First, install Docker from either the command line or from the Docker website.

~$ sudo apt install docker

Next, install docker-compose. Instead of using the version located in the Ubuntu repositories (it's old), we will install it straight from their GitHub. The current version is 2.20.3, but you can change it to newer versions depending on when they release one.

~$ mkdir -p ~/.docker/cli-plugins/
~$ curl -SL https://github.com/docker/compose/releases/download/v2.20.3/docker-compose-linux-x86_64 -o ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

We will then have to make the plugin executable.

~$ chmod +x ~/.docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Nvidia card owners may want to install nvidia-docker to help with performance of visualization and simulation tools such as RViz and Gazebo.

~$ sudo apt install nvidia-docker

Finally, clone the repository into a desired folder and then change directory (cd) to it.

~$ git clone https://github.com/zmk5/mp_host_setup.git
~$ cd mp_host_setup

Building and Running the Docker Images

To build the images, run the following command in the mini_pupper_host directory:

~$ docker compose build

Running a Mini Pupper Simulation

Once the images are built, we can run a simulation with RViz using the following command:

~$ docker compose up simulation

This will bring up a Gazebo simulation along with RViz.

Controlling a Mini Pupper with Teleop Node

With the simulation up, we can control the pupper using the teleop node. Instead of using docker compose up we will run docker compose run instead.

NOTE: The up command simply creates and starts the container service in a non-interactive mode. This isn't a big deal for GUI services since you can interact with the GUI that pops up and it will work. However, this is an issue when trying to run a ROS node that takes in user input from a keyboard in the CLI. The run command runs a one-off command of our teleop service that we can interact with and move the pupper.

~$ docker compose up keyboard