Jetson Xavier NX on Ubuntu 20.04

[marcelino-pensa]

I am creating this unofficial discussion for those who want to use a Jetson Xavier NX with Ubuntu 20.04 along with the iRobot Create 3. I will start with my personal documentation on how I achieved that. If you'd like to follow these steps, do it at your own discretion, as I cannot guarantee that it will work seamlessly. This is my first experience with a Jetson Xavier NX and ROS2, so take my words with a grain of salt.

Any ideas, suggestions and corrections are welcome in this discussion page.

Who should do this

• This is mainly useful for those who would like to use python 3, or who wants to run native applications from ROS2 Galactic.
• If you'd prefer to develop natively on Ubuntu, instead of interfacing with the robot through docker, as suggested in iRobot's documentation. I think it might still be possible to install ROS Foxy on Ubuntu 18.04 and communicate with the robot without docker, but I haven't tested that myself
• Other reasons that other users might point out

Who should not do this
Nvidia doesn't have an image with Ubuntu 20.04 for the Jetson boards (if you found one, please add to this discussion). As of last month, it seems like ubuntu 20.04 is now supported on some Jetson platforms, but I could not find an image myself.

How to install Ubuntu 20.04 on a Jetson Xavier NX

• Since I couldn't find a Ubuntu 20.04 image for my Jetson Xavier NX, first I followed the instructions from Nvidia's support to flash Ubuntu 18.04 on this board.

• With Ubuntu 18.04 booted on your Jetson, the next step is to upgrade it to Ubuntu 20.04. Do this at your own risk, but things have been working fine to me. I followed the instructions from this link. It worked for me, despite being written originally for a Jetson Nano.

Install ros2 Galactic

• This step is simple, just follow iRobot's instructions. In the RMW step, choose export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp

Install Intel Realsense (optional)

• Run the buildLibrealsense.sh script from this repository. Make sure to use gcc 8 for that, and switch to gcc 9 afterwards (see this link again for reference).

Test that you can communicate with the Create 3 robot

• Make sure that the robot is connected to the same wifi network as you are. See this link for reference
• Run the command ros2 topic list, you should see the following:

/battery_state
/cmd_audio
/cmd_lightring
/cmd_vel
/dock
/hazard_detection
/imu
/interface_buttons
/ir_intensity
/ir_opcode
/kidnap_status
/mouse
/odom
/parameter_events
/robot_state/transition_event
/rosout
/slip_status
/static_transform/transition_event
/stop_status
/system_monitor/transition_event
/tf
/tf_static
/wheel_status
/wheel_ticks
/wheel_vels

Finally, test that you can get data from the robot by running ros2 topic echo /battery_state. You should see something like this:

header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1652920296
    nanosec: 700261009
  frame_id: ''
voltage: 14.432000160217285
temperature: 30.149999618530273
current: -0.2280000001192093
charge: 0.8299999833106995
capacity: 2.049999952316284
design_capacity: 2.049999952316284
percentage: 0.4000000059604645
power_supply_status: 0
power_supply_health: 0
power_supply_technology: 0
present: true
cell_voltage: []
cell_temperature: []
location: ''
serial_number: ''
---

Using your keyboard to teleoperate the robot around

• Open a terminal in the Jetson and install the keyboard teleop node: sudo apt install ros-galactic-teleop-twist-keyboard
• Run the node: ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard
• Now you'll be able to drive the robot around using the keyboard keys described in the terminal

Dock/Undock

• If the robot is docked, you can request it to undock with the command: ros2 action send_goal /undock irobot_create_msgs/action/Undock "{}"
• If the robot is undocked, you can request it to dock with the command: ros2 action send_goal /dock irobot_create_msgs/action/DockServo "{}"

[marcelino-pensa]

Bridge between ROS1 and ROS2
If you already have code written in ROS1 and want to test it with the robot, you will need to use the ros1_bridge.

• First, create a ROS2 workspace as described in here
• Navigate to the src folder of your ROS2 workspace, and clone the following repositories:
  • git clone [email protected]:ros2/ros1_bridge.git
  • git clone [email protected]:iRobotEducation/irobot_create_msgs.git
• Follow the installation instructions in the Readme file of ros1_bridge. Grab a coffee, as this step took over 30min to me.
• Follow the instructions in the Readme file to test ros1_bridge

Test robot keyboard teleoperation using ROS1`
You'll need 3 terminals:

• In the first terminal, start roscore: source ${ROS1_INSTALL_PATH}/setup.bash && roscore
• Start the bridge in the second terminal: source ${ROS1_INSTALL_PATH}/setup.bash && source ${ROS2_INSTALL_PATH}/setup.bash && ros2 run ros1_bridge dynamic_bridge
• Start ROS1 teleop node on a third terminal: source ${ROS1_INSTALL_PATH}/setup.bash && rosrun teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard.py

[bluecamel]

Thanks for sharing! I almost went this direction before discovering the docker containers, but I'm going to have to try this now.

[eecue]

This was super helpful thanks!

[eecue]

Actually, I noticed the when running realsense-viewer it's not using any GPU ... is yours working? did you need to do anything special to get it to work?

[marcelino-pensa]

I actually never paid attention to whether realsense-viewer uses any GPU, but I recall using realsense-viewer with no issue. Note that I only used it with a T265, I did not spend any time testing other realsense devices

[ParadoxRobotics]

How have you install the following package : https://github.com/iRobotEducation/irobot_create_msgs ?
via Debian or from source ?