REMARO Summer School Delft 2022 - Underwater robotics hackathon

The overall goal of this hackathon is to provide hands-on training for the Early Stage Researchers (ESRs) of the REMARO network (but not limited to) on how to architect, program, simulate and implement basic underwater robot functionalities.

More specifically, the goals for ESRs with background in:

• Mathematics/Computer Science: Learn basic robotics workflow and commonly used tools
• Robotics: learn cutting-edge tools, and details on how to develop robot-specific system

Thus, this training will address how to setup an underwater robot, such as the BlueROV2, to run with ROS2, and how to simulate it with Gazebo (Ignition). The idea is that participants work with a simulation first and then test what is developed in a real BlueROV2, with this they can begin to understand the challenges and differences of deploying a robot in simulation and in the real world.

The use case selected for this training is “wall avoidance”. Basically, the goal is for the robot to navigate an environment and not crash into walls using only sonar data. An initial code for a random avoidance mission is provided, and the idea is that participants work to develop better missions during this training and improve the system in general.

More details on instructions for participants can be found in the PARTICIPANTS_TODO

You can check the random wall avoidance behavior on the video:

Acknowledgements

This work is part of the Reliable AI for Marine Robotics (REMARO) Project. For more info, please visit: https://remaro.eu/

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 956200.

Summary

• Computer setup
• Bluerov setup
• Installation
  • Install prerequisites to run with docker
  • Install locally
• Run it with docker via CLI
• Run with docker with VSCode
• Run locally
• Explanation
• Exercises
• Additional information

Setup

Tested with:

• Ubuntu 22.04
• ROS2 Humble
• Gazebo (Ignition) Garden
• ArduPilot (Sub-4.1)
• ardupilot_gazebo plugin
• mavros2
• remaro_world
• bluerov2_ignition

Bluerov Setup

• BlueOS (v1.0.1)

Installation

There are 3 options to use this repo. Install everything locally in your computer. This will require some effort, but when done should be easier to use. Run everything with docker (read disclaimer bellow):

• Via the CLI. This option should be faster to reproduce everything, but is a little bit annoying for development.
• Using VSCode. Requires installing VSCode. Should be easier way to use everything. (work in progress)

Disclaimer Running docker images with graphical user interface is a little bit trick and might not work in all systems. We tested in a system with ubuntu 22.04 and with a NVIDIA gpu. It might not work on systems with AMD gpus, and on MAC. We are going to try to fix this problem until the hackathon, but it is not guaranteed. In those cases go for the local installation.

Install prerequisites to run with docker

• Install docker on your machine. You can find instructions here
• Allow non-root users to manage docker. Instructions here
• Install VSCode. Instructions here
• Install nvidia-docker(only needed if you have a nvidia GPU)

Configure computer to connect with the BlueROV2

Follow Bluerobotics instructions

Install locally

Install Gazebo Garden

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