Setting up the SMB Core Software

Documentation of the SuperMegaBot (SMB) for the ETHZ Robotic Summer School.

Please create an issue for any missing library, package, driver, error or any kind of unclear instruction.

Remarks

  1. In case you would like to only run the simulation environment, it is enough to download and run the SMB docker image.
    Alternatively, you can follow the steps below to set the simulation up in an Ubuntu 20.04 environment.

  2. The SMB software is split up in two parts: non-hardware and hardware related.
    If you want to use the system on a real SMB robot with real sensors and actuators, the hardware related part should be installed on top of the non-hardware part. This document contains the instructions about SMB non-hardware related software, which also contains the simulation environment.

Prerequisites

Note that, the system has been developed in Ubuntu 20.04 and test with ROS Noetic.

  • To check if the system has the correct ROS distribution please use the following terminal command.

      echo $ROS_DISTRO
  # output: noetic

  • If you do not see the correct output, please refer to the official ROS website to install ROS Noetic Desktop.

    After installation, please ensure that environment variables like ROS_ROOT and ROS_PACKAGE_PATH are set. Please verify the installation by running the following terminal command.

      printenv | grep ROS

Software Installation

Installing command-line tools

this part contains scripts to download tools for catkin, deps, and repository management

# tool for repo management
sudo apt install python3-vcstool
# tool for catkin packages
sudo apt install python3-catkin-tools python3-catkin-lint python3-pip
# tool for install deps
sudo apt install python3-rosdep
# misc libs/tools
python3 -m pip install osrf-pycommon

Creating catkin workspace

Create a new catkin workspace.

# create the directories
# Do not forget to change <...> parts
mkdir -p <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/src
cd <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/

# initilize the catkin workspace
catkin init
catkin config --extend /opt/ros/noetic
catkin config -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

  • example

      # Example directory to ws and catkin workspace name
  mkdir -p ~/smb_ws/src
  cd ~/smb_ws/
  catkin init
  catkin config --extend /opt/ros/noetic
  catkin config -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Downloading the SMB packages with vcstool

To download the SMB packages, the vcs command-line tools will be used. For more information about the tool you can check the link.

To download the SMB packages by using vcs tool run the following terminal commands in order.

# Navigate to the directory of src in your <catkin_ws_name>
cd <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/src

# Download the packages
vcs import \
--recursive \
--input https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ETHZ-RobotX/SuperMegaBot/master/smb.repos .

Installing dependencies with rosdep

To install the dependencies, rosdep package will be used.For more information about the package you can check the link

  • (optional) If you did not do in the ROS installation step, please install rosdep package run the following terminal commands in order.

      sudo apt-get install python3-rosdep
  sudo rosdep init
  rosdep update

  • To download the SMB dependencies by using rosdep package run the following terminal commands in order.

      # Navigate to the directory of src in your <catkin_ws_name>
  cd <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/src

  # Magic of rosdep
  rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src --os=ubuntu:focal -r -y

    Installing all the dependency may take a while.

  • Note that, rosdep might not be able to install all dependencies. Please check the message at the terminal.

    Example : ros-noetic-gazebo-plugins

      # Install example missing package even after resdep
  sudo apt install ros-noetic-gazebo-plugins

(Optional) Installing conda environment

if you are using or want to use conda for managing python packages in virtual environments, there’s a few missing dependencies you can install in this optional step:

# Create a conda environment for the robotics summer school (feel free to choose a different name than rss)
conda create --name rss

#Activate the conda environment
conda activate rss

# (Optional) activate this environment by default on a new terminal
echo 'conda activate rss' >> ~/.bashrc

# Install python dependencies
conda install -c conda-forge empy defusedxml rospkg numpy -y

Finalization

After all required SMB packages and dependencies are cloned and installed, you can build the project:

# Navigate to the directory of workspace
cd <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/

# Build it
catkin build smb_gazebo

# Source it
source <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/devel/setup.bash

You should see that every package is succesfully built. After you built the packages, you can add the source file into ~/.bashrc so that you do not have to source it everytime you log in a new terminal.

# Do not forget to change <...> parts
echo "source <directory_to_ws>/<catkin_ws_name>/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Running the simulation

Refer to the How To Run Software Documentation to learn on how to run the simulation.

To get everything running on the real robot, you also need to follow the steps described in the documentation of the hardware related ROS packages.

Setting aliases for quick connection with SMB

Refer to the HowToSimplifyAccess to learn on how to simplify the SSH connection to NUC computer and Jetson Xavier on SMB.