Software Setup

On CURTmini, ROS 2 Jazzy is already installed and a workspace is created, containing the robot base software (this package).

PC Setup, Network

The default username to access the robot is curt, with password curtmini. You can either attach keyboard and mouse and a screen to the integrated computer (NUC), connect to the robot hotspot nuc-curt-mini-... using password curtmini, or manually connect CURTmini to an existing WiFi network. In the robot hotspot, the NUC has the IP address 10.42.0.1.

ROS Workspace

A ROS workspace is already set up at /home/curt/workspace.

Autostart

When turning on CURTmini, a tmux session called nav is started automatically as specified in the tmuxp config file in this repo. By default, the robot base launchfile is started, allowing access to all the integrated sensors, receiving twist commands from navigation software and controlling the robot manually with the joystick. To customize startup behavior, adjust the tmuxp configuration accordingly.

Attach to the running TMUX session using:

$ tmux attach -t nav

This is implemented using a systemd service ipa-ros-autostart:

[Unit]
Description=CURTmini ROS autostart with tmuxp
PartOf=ipa-tmux-master.service
After=ipa-tmux-master.service

Wants=multicast-lo.service
After=multicast-lo.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
RemainAfterExit=yes
User=curt
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tmuxp load -d /home/curt/workspace/src/curt_mini/curt_mini/bringup/autostart.tmuxp.yaml
ExecStop=/usr/bin/tmux kill-session -t nav

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Which requires an additional systemd service to start the host tmux session:

[Unit]
Description=tmux master service

[Service]
Type=forking
User=curt
ExecStart=/usr/bin/tmux new-session -s master -d
ExecStop=/usr/bin/tmux kill-session -t master

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

And a service to enable multicast on the loopback interface, as specified in the autoware documentation.

RMW

CycloneDDS is configured as the default RMW implementation using the following environment variables in .bashrc:

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI="file:///opt/ros/cyclonedds-config.xml"

By default, only the loopback interface is enabled. Add more network interfaces here if multi-host communication is desired.

<CycloneDDS xmlns="https://cdds.io/config" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://cdds.io/config https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eclipse-cyclonedds/cyclonedds/master/etc/cyclonedds.xsd">
  <Domain Id="any">
    <General>
      <Interfaces>
        <NetworkInterface autodetermine="false" name="lo" priority="default" multicast="default" />
      </Interfaces>
      <AllowMulticast>true</AllowMulticast>
      <MaxMessageSize>65500B</MaxMessageSize>
    </General>
    <Discovery>
      <MaxAutoParticipantIndex>100</MaxAutoParticipantIndex>
    </Discovery>
    <Internal>
      <SocketReceiveBufferSize min="10MB" />
      <Watermarks>
        <WhcHigh>500kB</WhcHigh>
      </Watermarks>
    </Internal>
  </Domain>
</CycloneDDS>

The corresponding buffer sizes are specified in /etc/sysctl.conf:

net.core.rmem_max=2147483647
net.core.wmem_max=2147483647

UDEV

Udev rules are installed for permissions and identification of the joystick controller and IMU:

# Logitech F710 joystick at /dev/input/f710
KERNEL=="js[0-9]*", ATTRS{name}=="Logitech Gamepad F710", SYMLINK+="input/f710"

# LP-Research IMUs as /dev/tty<SERIAL NUMBER>
SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ENV{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}=="LPMS*", SYMLINK+="tty%E{ID_SERIAL_SHORT}"

BIOS

The NUC is configured to automatically boot once it is powered, by setting the “After Power Failure” setting to “Power On” in the “Power” menu. Additionally, the “Fan Mode” setting in the “Cooling” menu is set to “Performance”.

Colcon Defaults

A ~/.colcon/defaults.yaml file is already installed to ensure the robot base packages are built in release mode, and using symlink-install:

{
  "build": {
    "symlink-install": true,
    "cmake-args": [
      "-DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=True",
      "-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo",
    ]
  }
}