Micro-ROS Power and Distance Sensors Demo

This demo illustrates the micro-ROS capabilities and showcases the integration of micro-ROS with ROS 2 tools. Besides, it enables the comparison of micro-ROS and ROS 2 outcomes.

The use-case consists in a ROS2-controlled Raspberry Pi 4 with a TFMini sensor that measures the distance to a target object and a micro-ROS-controlled Olimex STM32-E407 board with the similar TFMini sensor, which measures the distance to the same object. The demo explores another micro-ROS-controlled Olimex STM32-E407 board, which measures the power consumption of both Raspberry Pi 4 and Olimex STM32-E407 boards for distance measurements, using INA219 sensors. The last component, a tablet display, visualizes measurement results using standard ROS 2 tools (rqt).

Raspberry Pi 4 is running Linux and a ROS 2 application, while Olimex STM32-E407 boards are running NuttX and micro-ROS applications.Both of them are publishing sensor messages via UDP over Ethernet LAN sending distance and power data to the display. The tablet is running Linux, ROS 2 and a micro-ROS agent to receive these messages.

Contens

• Demo Box diagram
• Topics
• Hardware
• Sensor wiring
• Ethernet connection
• How to build the micro-ROS demo system on Olimex STM32-E407
• How to build the ROS 2 demo system on a tablet
• How to build the ROS 2 demo system on Raspberry Pi 4
• Running the demo

Demo Box diagram

Topics

In this demo there are two different micro-ROS nodes and the ROS 2 node which publish the following topics:

• /distance_oli: distance measured by a sensor on the Olimex-E407 board,
• /power_oli: power consumtion of the distance Olimex board,
• /power_rpi: power consumtion of the Raspberry Pi,
• /distance_rpi: distance measured by a sensor on the Raspberry Pi.

From these topics subscribes a ROS 2 node on the tablet.

Hardware

The following is a list of the demo hardware:

• 1 x Raspberry Pi 4 + Power Supply + SD Card,
• 2 x Olimex STM32-E407 + Power Supply + Ethernet cable,
• 2 x TFMini Micro LiDAR Module,
• 2 x INA219 DC Current Sensor + shunt resistor,
• 1 x NETGEAR proSafe Gigabit Switch GS105 + Power Supply,
• 1 x Getac 2 Tablet + Power Supply + Ethernet cable,
• 1 x PC + ST-LINK/V2 to flash firmware to Olimex boards.

Sensor wiring

Ethernet connection

IP addresses:

- Tablet: 192.168.10.2
- RPI: 192.168.10.4
- Distance Olimex: 192.168.10.17
- Power Olimex: 192.168.10.18

How to build the micro-ROS demo system on Olimex STM32-E407

The environment for setting up the Demo Box applications will be perform within a docker:

• Download the micro-ROS base Foxy image from the Docker Hub, then run a docker container

sudo docker pull microros/base:foxy
sudo docker run -it --net=host --privileged -v /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb     microros/base:foxy

• Create a ROS 2 workspace in the uros_ws folder of the docker container and build the package

source /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO/setup.bash
git clone -b $ROS_DISTRO https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro_ros_setup.git src/micro_ros_setup
apt update && rosdep update
rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src -y
apt-get install python3-pip
apt-get -y install python3-pip
colcon build
source install/local_setup.bas

• Create the Nuttx firmware on Olimex-E407 with the Demo Box sensor applications

  ros2 run micro_ros_setup create_firmware_ws.sh nuttx olimex-stm32-e407
  cd firmware/NuttX
  git checkout -t origin/foxy
  cd ../apps
  git checkout -t origin/master
  cd ..
  

  Build an flash the firmware:

• Set the configuration profile variable to select the demo distance or demo power application

CFG_PROFILE=demo_distance_romfs

• Build the application

ros2 run micro_ros_setup configure_firmware.sh $CFG_PROFILE
cp firmware/NuttX/configs/olimex-stm32-e407/$CFG_PROFILE/rcS.template firmware/apps/nshlib/rcS.template
cd firmware/apps/nshlib/
../../NuttX/tools/mkromfsimg.sh -nofat ../../NuttX/
cd /uros_ws/
ros2 run micro_ros_setup build_firmware.sh

• Connect ST-Link/V2 to Olimex STM32-E407 JTAG interface and flash the firmware

ros2 run micro_ros_setup flash_firmware.sh

• Repeat the procedure Build the application with the Olimex used for monitoring the current consumption but before, the configuration needs to be changed as follow:

CFG_PROFILE=demo_power_romfs

How to build the ROS 2 demo system on a tablet

Use a tablet with Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) installation:

• Install the ROS 2 Desktop system

sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg2 lsb-release
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2-latest.list'
sudo apt update && sudo apt install ros-foxy-desktop
source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash
sudo apt install -y python3-pip
pip3 install -U argcomplete
sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions

• Install a micro_ROS agent

mkdir ~/microros_ws && cd ~/microros_ws
git clone -b $ROS_DISTRO https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro_ros_setup.git src/micro_ros_setup
sudo apt update && rosdep update
rosdep install --from-path src --ignore-src -y
colcon build
source install/local_setup.bash
ros2 run micro_ros_setup create_agent_ws.sh
ros2 run micro_ros_setup build_agent.sh

• Install ROS 2 Demo Box packeges

cd ~/
git clone ssh://git@10.0.9.18:6822/amalki/demo_suitcase.git
cd ~/demo_suitcase/
colcon build

• Configure the static Ethernet address

IPv4 address: 192.168.10.2
netmask 255.255.255.0

How to build the ROS 2 demo system on Raspberry Pi 4

• Install the Ubuntu Server 20.04 on Raspberry Pi 4

• Power on Raspberry Pi, obtain a console using ssh and install the ROS 2 Foxy system as following

sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg2 lsb-release
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture)] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2-latest.list'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-foxy-ros-base
sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions

• Install ROS 2 Demo Box packages

cd ~/
git clone ssh://git@10.0.9.18:6822/amalki/demo_suitcase.git
cd ~/demo_suitcase/
colcon build

• Configure the static eth0 address assingment in the /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml file

network:
    ethernets:
        eth0:
            dhcp4: no 
            dhcp6: no 
            addresses: [192.168.10.4/24]
            gateway4: 192.168.10.1

    version: 2

• Switch off the serial console by adjusting the /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt file

net.ifnames=0 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 root=LABEL=writable rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait fixrtc

• Boot the Raspberry Pi and abort the boot process through pressing a key on a serial terminal and set the bootdelay variable to -2

U-Boot> setenv bootdelay -2
U-Boot> saveenv

• Put the startup_rpi.sh script into a boot up sequence to run the demo application on a Rasberry Pi start up

Running the demo

Connect the devices via an Ethernet switch and power them on, then run the command on the tablet

~/demo_suitcase/startup.sh

After some time two rqt windows should appear with sensors data histograms.

License

This repository is open-sourced under the Apache-2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for details.

For a list of other open-source components included in this repository, see the file 3rd-party-licenses.txt

Known Issues/Limitations

There are no known limitations.

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