UIOWA-2023

Getting Started

Installing ROS

• It is highly recommended to use a Ubuntu linux operating system.

• If needed a virtual machine will work

• Follow the installation instructions found here

Setting up python environment

1. Create python virtual environment: python3 -m venv venv

2. Enable virtual environment (venv): source venv/bin/activate

   • Note: venv can be disabled by running deactivate at any time

3. Install dependencies (must have ros 2 already installed): pip install -r requirements.txt

   • Note: requirements.txt can be updated with new dependencies by running pip freeze > requirements.txt

Running the code

1. Run source build_packages.bash while in the workspace (only needs to be done once)

2. Launch the rover with ros2 launch rover_launch.xml

3. Launch the laptop with ros2 launch home_launch.xml

Documentation

• ROS 2 Humble

Building Packages

• All ROS2 packages are contained in src/ directory
• Packages can be built by running colcon build --symlink-install from workspace
• Add built packages to ROS2 environment by running source install/setup.bash

Creating Packages

1. Packages can be created by navigating to src/ and running ros2 pkg create --build-type ament_python <package_name>

2. Add node files to src/package_name/package_name

3. Add node to source script src/package_name/setup.py by modifying like so:

entry_points={
    'console_scripts': [
        'node_name = package_name.node_name:main',
    ],
}