RoboRacing Software Installation Instructions

Welcome!

Robojackets RoboRacing currently supports an Ubuntu 18.04 and ROS-melodic environment. The project may build/run in other environments, but we can't guarantee it.

Let's begin the installation process.

Step 1 - Get Terminator

We primarily use terminator instead of the default terminal since it allows for both horizontal and vertical splitting (which obviously increases overall productivity). Start up the default terminal and type:

sudo apt install terminator

You should now be using this from now on, it will help later.

Step 2 - Set up your sources.list

Now for these next steps you don't need to understand what they do, only make sure they complete properly. So if you see any errors come up, tell one of us immediately. Copy this into your terminal:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Step 3 - Set up your keys

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654

Step 4 - Update your Debian packages

sudo apt update

Step 5 - Get Ros melodic

sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full

Step 6 - Initialize rosdep

sudo rosdep init

rosdep update

Step 7 - Environment Variable Setup

echo "source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

Step 8 - Initialize catkin workspace

cd <path to where you want to keep the project>

mkdir catkin_ws

cd catkin_ws

mkdir src

cd src

catkin_init_workspace

cd ..

catkin_make

• Command should complete and not really do anything
• If init_catkin_workspace failed then ROS did not install correctly and/or try "sudo apt-get update" which may fix the issue where catkin_init_workspace command can not be found

Step 9 - Clone RoboRacing Repository

• Clone RoboRacing Github Repository (with the git submodules)

cd src

git clone https://github.com/RoboJackets/roboracing-software.git --recursive

Step 10 - Install ROS Dependencies

cd ..

echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src -y

• rosdep will download and install all of the necessary ros package dependencies, type "y" whenever it asks if it is ok to continue installation

Step 11 - Install Python Dependencies

• Install python dependencies (for Python 2) which are not in ROS:

pip install keras tensorflow numpy pynput matplotlib

Step 12 - Install FlyCapture SDK

• Download the SDK and unpack it

sudo apt-get install libraw1394-11 libavcodec57 libavformat57 \
libswscale4 libswresample2 libavutil55 libgtkmm-2.4-1v5 \
libglademm-2.4-1v5 libgtkglextmm-x11-1.2-0v5 libgtkmm-2.4-dev \
libglademm-2.4-dev libgtkglextmm-x11-1.2-dev libusb-1.0-0

cd <downloaded flycapture2 folder>

sudo sh install_flycapture.sh

Step 13 - Build the Code

catkin_make

• If this fails the first time try running catkin_make again

Step 14 - Run the Code

roscore &

• Then press [Enter]

roslaunch rr_gazebo macaroni_iarrc_circuit.launch

• Remeber to do source ~/.bashrc if the launch file can't be found in package
• Gazebo usually freezes when loading right after installation so just run it, wait, kill it with [Ctrl-C], wait until it is dead, then retry!