ros_workspace

ROS Workspace

This README.md details how to setup the ROS Worksapce.

Compiling directly

1. Ensure that you are running Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat) on your computer or in a virtualized environment

2. Install ROS2 Jazzy

3. Install necessary dependencies for our ROS2 workspace. You can look through the Dockerfile (Software_2026/ros_workspace/Dockerfile) for the most up-to-date list of dependancies. You additionally have to run sudo install_rswebrtc.bash in Software_2026/Tools/.

4. Run colcon build in Software_2026/ros_workspace

5. Source the workspace by running source install/setup.bash in Software_2026/ros_workspace/

You can choose the backend launch file to run based on the ROV and whether or not you are using the simulation_environment. Once chosen, you can run:

ros2 launch <backend package (ex. bluestar_backend)> <launch file <ex. simulation_bluestar_startup.xml>>

If you are using BlueStar, you can also run our the BlueStar Frontend

ros2 run bluestar_frontend bluestar_frontend

At compile time, you can choose the camera backend used in BlueStar's frontend. By default it will use a backend based off gstreamer's webrtcbin, but a backend based off gstrreamer's whepclientsrc can be selected by building with the following argument:

colcon build --cmake-args -DBLUESTAR_CAMERA_BACKEND=whepclientsrc

If you make changes and would like to recompile, restart from step 4.

Setting up on Docker

1. Install Docker and ensure you can use docker compose

2. Run the following within a terminal in Software_2026/.

sudo docker compose -f compose.dev.yaml up 

Note that compose.yaml is intended to run on the real ROVs' onboard Raspberry Pi computer and gives it access to the I2C bus for communication with the RP2040 on the tooling board. compose.dev.yaml runs the same code, but for interfacing with our simulation environment.

You should now have the docker container, eer_ros_packages.

You can type sudo docker exec -it eer_ros_packages bash in a terminal to interact with our ROS2 nodes.

If you make changes and would like to recompile:

sudo docker compose -f dev_compose.yaml up --build eer_ros_packages