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ERC Remote Navigation Example

This repository serves as a template that the teams can use as a starting point when developing their custom image for the Navigation and Science task in the ERC Remote competition.

To spare the teams the hassle of cross building the software for the target platform of the robot, we developed a Github workflow that automatically builds the Docker images for amd64 and arm64 platforms, and publishes them to the Github Container registry.

Features

The Dockerfile extends the image from ERC-Remote-Image-Base repository and:

  • installs additional packages - by default only the tmux package is added as an example but you can list any other packages you would like to install,
  • creates a catkin workspace, copies the ROS packages from the src directory, installs dependencies using rosdep and builds the workspace,
  • adds a line to the system-wide bashrc file that will automatically source the workspace on a new bash session,
  • copies the start.sh script and sets it as a default command for the image.

The erc_bringup package is added as an example and contains:

  • image_saver node - a script that let's you save an image from a camera to a PNG file by publishing a message, containing camera topic name, on the image_saver/save topic,
  • erc_bringup.launch file - a launch file that starts the image_saver node and is launched by the start.sh script when the container starts.

Quick start guide

1. Import the code to a private repository

To make use of the Github actions, we recommend importing this project to a new private repository on Github. The simplest method to do this, is to use Github's Import Repository tool.

For Your old repository's clone URL, choose:
https://github.com/EuropeanRoverChallenge/ERC-Remote-Navigation-Example.git

Select the Owner as either your account or the organization you are in.
Choose the Repository Name at your discretion. On the Privacy tab, select Private.

Click Begin import.

Once the project is imported, a Github workflow run should automatically start (check the Actions tab). If it did not start, make sure that actions are allowed in the repository settings.

2. Add your custom software

Now you can clone your new repository and add your software. For example:

  • To add custom ROS packages, simply put them into the src directory. Make sure that you correctly define dependencies in package.xml files, as rosdep will use this information to install dependent packages.
  • To install any additional packages or files, edit the Dockerfile by adding or modying existing commands.
  • To change the starting behavior, edit the start.sh script.

Once you have your changes ready, commit them and push to the repository. A new workflow run should start.

3. Import credentials for the device

You will need to obtain credentials for the device on the Freedom Robotics platform, in order to make Freedom agent connect to it when the container is started. Assuming you already created a device you would like to use, head to the SETTINGS -> TOKENS, go to the DEVICE tab, click ADD TOKEN, select your device and click CREATE. Use this token to replace the values in the credentials.env file with valid credentials.

4. Pull the docker image

Once the Github workflow completes its run, you should be able to pull the image from Github container registry to your local computer for testing purposes. To do this, you will first need to Authenticate to the Container registry, then simply run:

docker pull ghcr.io/OWNER/IMAGE_NAME

Replace OWNER with your username or organization on Github and the IMAGE_NAME with with the repository name.
You can tag your commits if you want to be able to access older images. For example, if you push a v10 tag the image will also be built with this tag and you can pull it any time by running:

docker pull ghcr.io/OWNER/IMAGE_NAME:v10

5. Run the docker image

Now, you can run and test your image:

docker run -it --env-file credentials.env --name erc_img ghcr.io/OWNER/IMAGE_NAME

If everything is working correctly, the status of the device on the Freedom Robotics platform should change to Connected. You can then try to try to enable SSH tunnel by going into Settings -> Remote SSH and clicking Enable Remote SSH. Paste the ssh command into a terminal and run it, when asked for password, type root.

Testing the image with the simulation

Running the image with the simulation is not only a means of testing your software but also a great way to create simulated scenarios of operation on the field trial.

To make your software able to communicate with the simulation nodes, you need to make sure your container and the simulation can talk on the network. The simplest method to do this is to just remove the container's network isolation and use the host network.

First, start the simulation. If you are using the simulation natively on the host you should be good to go. If you are starting the simulation through a docker container, add the --net=host argument to the docker run command.

Now, run your image, also with the --net=host option. The full command should look like this:

docker run -it --net=host --env-file credentials.env --name erc_img ghcr.io/OWNER/IMAGE_NAME

If everything is working correctly, you should be able to visualize data from the simulation on the Freedom Robotics platform.

Connecting to a simulation running on another computer

You can actually run this image and the simulation on different computers. This is particularly useful for testing the image on an arm-based single-board computer (like Jetson) to further replicate conditions from the actual competition.

Make sure both computers are connected to the same network and can talk to each other. You will need to start all nodes with the correct ROS_IP and ROS_MASTER_URI variables. To demonstrate it on an example, let's assume you have the following setup:

subnet: 10.0.0.0/24
IP of the simulation computer: 10.0.0.1
IP of the testing computer: 10.0.0.2

On the simulation computer, type:

export ROS_IP=10.0.0.1

If you are using simulation natively on the host, just run it. If you are running it through a docker container, add -e ROS_IP option to the docker run command to pass the variable to the container.

On the testing computer, type:

export ROS_IP=10.0.0.2
export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://10.0.0.1:11311

Add -e ROS_IP -e ROS_MASTER_URI arguments when running the image. The full command should look like this:

docker run -it --net=host -e ROS_IP -e ROS_MASTER_URI --env-file credentials.env --name erc_img ghcr.io/OWNER/IMAGE_NAME