Manual INSTALL

Platforms

MARRtino can be controlled from a Linux box.

You need one of the following operating systems.

  • Ubuntu 16.04
  • Ubuntu 14.04

Packages

To build the initial ROS-free installation you need the following packages

  • g++: the host compiler
  • arduino and arduino-mk: the default arduino build system, used to compile and flash the arduino board
  • ncurses: a library for console forms
  • make: the make program
  • libwebsockets: a library for controlling the robot from a web socket
  • git: to download git repos from the web

Install them by typing on a terminal.

$ sudo apt-get install g++ arduino arduino-mk libncurses5-dev make libwebsockets-dev libreadline-dev

Getting the firmware and Host Programs

The software to control the robot requires the following packages (with provided version). These packages can be extracted in any folder (e.g. $HOME/src/srrg) and linked from the src directory of your ROS catkin workspace.

  • Example of commands to download srrg orazio modules
SRRG_HOME=$HOME/src/srrg/
mkdir -p $SRRG_HOME
cd $SRRG_HOME
git clone https://gitlab.com/srrg-software/srrg_cmake_modules.git
git clone https://gitlab.com/srrg-software/srrg_core.git
git clone https://gitlab.com/srrg-software/srrg_core_ros.git
git clone https://gitlab.com/srrg-software/srrg2_orazio_core.git
git clone https://gitlab.com/srrg-software/srrg2_orazio_ros.git

In srrg_core/src/CMakeLists.txt comment out the lines referring to examples and applications that are not needed for MARRtino robot.

  • Example of commands to compile srrg orazio modules
CATKIN_DIR=$HOME/ros/catkin_ws
cd $CATKIN_DIR/src
ln -s $SRRG_HOME/srrg_cmake_modules .
ln -s $SRRG_HOME/srrg_core .
ln -s $SRRG_HOME/srrg_core_ros .
ln -s $SRRG_HOME/srrg2_orazio_core .
ln -s $SRRG_HOME/srrg2_orazio_ros .
cd ..
catkin_make -j1

Getting Permission to access Arduino board

The first step is to upload the firmware on the Arduino. Be sure that you belong to the dialout group, that has access to the serial lines.

To this end type the following command on a terminal.

$ sudo addgroup <your username> dialout

Of course you replace <your username> with your login name. After this step, you might want to logout and login again, to be sure

the settings are properly reloaded. After you log in again type 

$ groups

on a terminal and see if the string dialout is in the list that appears on the terminal.

Once you do that, connect the arduino, and type the dmesg on a terminal. With this command we can see if the system has correctly detected our board. You should see /dev/ttyACM0 somewhere in the dmesg log. Sometimes arduino is reported as /dev/ttyACM1, depending if you have other serial devices connected to the system. For now we assume that the board is detected as /dev/ttyACM0.

Setting udev rules

Create a file (e.g., /etc/udev/rules.d/90-arduino.rules) with the following lines

#Arduino MEGA
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0042", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2341", SYMLINK+="orazio arduino_mega_$attr{serial}", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0242", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2341", SYMLINK+="orazio arduino_mega_$attr{serial}", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0010", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2341", SYMLINK+="orazio arduino_mega_$attr{serial}", MODE="0666"
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="0042", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2a03", SYMLINK+="orazio arduino_mega_$attr{serial}", MODE="0666"

Note: these settings should work with many models of Arduino and clones, but you should double check the idProduct and idVendor with 'dmesg' command.

Now restart the udev service

$ sudo service udev restart

Connect an Arduino board and check proper connections

$ ls -l /dev/ttyACM0
crw-rw-rw- 1 root dialout 166, 0 <...> /dev/ttyACM0
$ ls -l /dev/orazio 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 mag 13 14:27 /dev/orazio -> ttyACM0

Note: In the Virtual Machine, after connecting the USB cable, you have to select the "Arduino Mega" device from the menu Devices/USB (Dispositivi/USB). Verify that the operation completes successfully by using command dmesg from terminal and checking the results as shown below.

$ dmesg | grep -C 3 Arduino
[  418.721981] usb 2-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci-pci
[  419.068602] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=2a03, idProduct=0042
[  419.068606] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=220
[  419.068608] usb 2-2: Product: Arduino Mega    
[  419.068610] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Arduino Srl            
[  419.068612] usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 85438333036351C041E2
[  419.617324] cdc_acm 2-2:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[  419.638054] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm