maelic / ros2_pepper

Scripts for cross-compiling ROS and ROS2 for Softbank's Pepper

Introduction

This project contains a set of patches and scripts to compile and run ROS Kinetic onboard a Pepper robot. It runs OctoMap on it.

Pre-requirements

Download and extract the NaoQi C++ framework and Softbanks's crosstool chain and point the AL_DIR and ALDE_CTC_CROSS environment variables to their respective paths:

export AL_DIR=/home/NaoQi  <-- Or wherever you installed NaoQi
export ALDE_CTC_CROSS=$AL_DIR/ctc-linux64-atom-2.5.2.74

Because the ctc 2.5.2.74 has been removed from SoftBank's official downloads you may need to use the ctc 2.5.10.7 instead:

export ALDE_CTC_CROSS=$AL_DIR/ctc-linux64-atom-2.5.10.7

Prepare cross-compiling environment

We're going to use Docker to set up a container that will compile all the tools for cross-compiling ROS and all of its dependencies. Go to https://www.docker.com/community-edition to download it and install it for your Linux distribution.

1. Clone the project's repository

$ git clone https://github.com/Maelic/ros2_pepper.git
$ cd ros2_pepper

ROS

Prepare the requirements for ROS 1

The following script will create a Docker image and compile Python interpreters suitable for both the host and the robot.

./prepare_requirements_ros1.sh

Build ROS 1 dependencies

Before we actually build ROS for Pepper, there's a bunch of dependencies we'll need to cross compile which are not available in Softbank's CTC:

• console_bridge
• uuid
• poco
• tinyxml2
• urdfdom and urdfdom_headers
• SDL and SDL image
• hdf5
• bullet
• yaml-cpp
• eigen3
• qhull
• flann
• pcl
• octomap

./build_ros1_dependencies.sh

Build ROS Kinetic

Finally! Type the following, go grab a coffee and after a while you'll have an entire base ROS distro built for Pepper.

./build_ros1.sh

Copy ROS and its dependencies to the robot

By now you should have the following inside .ros-root in the current directory:

• Python 2.7 built for Pepper (System/Python-2.7.17)
• Python 3.8 built for Pepper (System/Python-3.8.1)
• All the dependencies required by ROS (System/ros1_dependencies)
• A ROS workspace with ROS Kinetic built for Pepper (System/ros1_inst)
• A helper script that will set up the ROS workspace in the robot (System/setup_ros1_pepper.bash)

We're going to copy these to the robot, assuming that your robot is connected to your network, type the following:

$ scp -r System.tar.gz nao@IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_ROBOT:ROS

unpack it on the robot again.

Run ROS Kinetic with octomap from inside Pepper

Now that we have it all in the robot, let's give it a try:

SSH into the robot

$ ssh nao@IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_ROBOT

(IN THE ROBOT): Source (not run) the setup script

$ source System/setup_ros1_pepper.bash

(IN THE ROBOT): Start the launch file for octomap

$ roslaunch  ~/System/launch/pepper_octomap.launch 

(ON THE EXTERNAL COMPUTER CONNECTED TO THE ROBOT): launch Rviz and visualized the data published in real time

$ export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_ROBOT:11311
$ export ROS_IP=IP_ADDRESS_OF_YOUR_ROBOT
$ rviz rviz

You should be able to see the built map under the topic "projected-map" (Add -> By Topic -> projected_map).

Citations and Sources

This repo is based on https://github.com/esteve/ros2_pepper of Esteve Fernandez.