Navtech ROS2 Examples

The Navtech ROS2 Driver repository contains examples of ROS2 publishers and subscribers, which interface with RTSP cameras and Navtech Radar. Both basic and complete examples are provided which allow simple publishing of data, simple subscribing to data, and also immediate viewing of radar/camera data, using the ROS2 visulaisation tool, RVIZ. The Navtech ROS2 driver is dependent on the Navtech SDK.

Please see lower level README.md files, for more specific information on the ROS project folders.

Navtech SDK Requirements

C++ 17

The ROS2 folder contains the ROS2 project files, for the publishers and subscribers, as detailed above.

• C++17 Compiler
  Install with the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install gcc-9 gcc-9-base gcc-9-doc g++-9
sudo apt install libstdc++-9-dev libstdc++-9-doc

• GCC 9.x and above
  Install with the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gcc-9

• Clang 10 and above
  Install with the following command:

sudo apt-get install clang-10

Linux Requirements

To use the shell scripts provided in the 'utility scripts' folder we require bash on Ubuntu. First you must execute:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure -p critical dash

ROS2 Requirements

As above and:
ROS2 Galactic Geoclone - CPP and Python bindings
Installation instructions can be found here: https://docs.ros.org/en/galactic/Installation/Ubuntu-Install-Binary.html

Python Requirements

Python3.0+

sudo apt install python3.8

Numpy 1.17.4
This can be installed with the following command:

sudo apt install python3-numpy

OpenCV Requirements

OpenCV 4.5.3 - CPP and Python bindings
Installation instructions here: https://www.linuxfromscratch.org/blfs/view/svn/general/opencv.html

FFMPEG Requirements

ffmpeg version 4.2.4-1ubuntu0.1
- Can be installed with the following command:

sudo apt install ffmpeg

License

The ROS2 driver which is released under The MIT License (MIT).
See https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT for full license details.

ROS2 Packages

To use ROS commands, ROS2 must first be sourced using:

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

Note - this must be done in every new terminal
Alternatively, make this permanent by adding to your bash file:

echo "source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

This will source ROS for every newly opened terminal window

All ROS2 packages must be built and installed before being run
Build with:

colcon build

Install with:

. install/setup.bash

Packages can be run like so:

ros2 run <package_name> <executable_name>

For example:

ros2 run nav_ros colossus_publisher

Packages can be run with their corresponding parameter files like so:

ros2 run <package_name> <executable_name> --ros-args --params-file <params_file_path>

For example:

ros2 run nav_ros colossus_publisher --ros-args --params-file ./src/nav_ros/config/colossus_publisher.yaml

camera_ros

Contains examples of publishers and subscribers to handle the connection to, and delivery of data from, an RTSP video stream.

See the README.md under 'camera_ros', for more detailed instructions

launch_ros

Contains examples of launch files which can be used with the ROS2 Navtech driver.

See the README.md under 'launch_ros', for more detailed instructions

messages

Contains the custom message types used within the ROS2 Navtech driver.

See the README.md under 'messages', for more detailed instructions

nav_ros

Contains examples of publishers and subscribers to handle the connection to, and delivery of data from, an Navtech radar.

See the README.md under 'nav_ros', for more detailed instructions

ROS2 Example install procedure

Update Ubuntu 20.04

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install IASDK prerequisites

sudo apt install build-essential clang g++ protobuf-compiler libprotobuf-dev cmake

Install ROS2 prerequisites

sudo apt install -y build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python3-dev python3 python3-pip software-properties-common

Install ROS2

sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl gnupg lsb-release
sudo curl -sSL <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key>  -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] <http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu> 
$(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null
sudo apt install ros-galactic-desktop
source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

Check install by running examples

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

check that the talker and listener are connected

Install OpenCV

sudo apt install git
git clone <https://github.com/opencv/opencv.git>
git clone <https://github.com/opencv/opencv_contrib.git>
sudo apt install build-essential cmake git pkg-config libpng-dev libtiff-dev gfortran openexr libgtk-3-dev libavcodec-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libavformat-dev libswscale-dev libv4l-dev libxvidcore-dev libx264-dev libjpeg-dev libatlas-base-dev python3-dev python3-numpy libtbb2 libtbb-dev libdc1394-22-dev libopenexr-devls
cd opencv
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE    -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local          -D WITH_CUDA=OFF        -D INSTALL_PYTHON_EXAMPLES=ON          -D OPENCV_GENERATE_PKGCONFIG=ON         -D  OPENCV_EXTRA_MODULES_PATH=~/opencv_contrib/modules  -D OPENCV_ENABLE_NONFREE=ON         -D BUILD_EXAMPLES=ON ..
make -j8  // (replace the 8 by the number of usable cores on your machine)
sudo make install
sudo apt install python3-opencv libopencv-dev

Check OpenCV is installed

python3 -c "import cv2; print(cv2.__version__)"^C

check that version >=4.5.3 is reported

pkg-config --modversion opencv4

check that version >=4.5.3 is reported

Install the Navtech Radar IASDK

git clone <https://bitbucket.org/navtechradar/iasdk-public.git>

Install Colcon (the ROS2 build tool)

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions
cd ~/iasdk/cpp_17
colcon build

Check the above command does not produce any errors

Build the ROS2 IASDK pacakges

cd ~/iasdk/ros2/
source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
colcon build
. install/setup.bash

Common errors and solutions

Ros executables cannot be found after build and execution attempt

Run the following to source the newly build executables

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
. install/setup.bash

Unable to launch RVIZ due to missing library (libQt5Core.so.5)

Run the following to source the newly build executables

rviz2: error while loading shared libraries: libQt5Core.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

In short - the above command removes a piece of code which is looking for something (renameat2 system call) that does not exist in kernels < 3.15