Note: This tutorial assumes that you have completed the previous tutorials: install ROS Indigo, create a catkin workspace.
(!) Please ask about problems and questions regarding this tutorial on answers.ros.org. Don't forget to include in your question the link to this page, the versions of your OS & ROS, and also add appropriate tags.

Install BlueROV ROS Packages

Description: Instructions for installing the bluerov and bluerov_apps packages.

Tutorial Level: BEGINNER

Next Tutorial: Basic ROV Usage

The ideal setup for ROS development on the BlueROV is to have ROS installed on both the ROV and on a desktop computer. For both machines, we recommend installing LTS releases of Ubuntu and ROS. Currently, this is Ubuntu 14.04 and ROS Indigo. We recommend ros-*-comm on the ROV and ros-*-desktop on the surface computer.

Install Flight Controller Software

ArduSub software is required on the flight controller. Follow the instructions there to load the software onto a compatible flight controller if you haven't already.

Install ROS Packages from apt

# TODO: PLEASE INSTALL FROM SOURCE; THIS DOESN'T WORK YET
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ros-*-bluerov ros-*-bluerov-apps

Install ROS Packages from Source

If you have a custom ROV configuration or you intend to develop on top of these packages, it might be beneficial to install these packages from source instead.

RaspberryPi Camera and ROS Driver

First, enable the RaspberryPi camera module in Ubuntu 14.04:

sudo sh -c 'echo "start_x=1\ngpu_mem=128" >> /boot/config.txt'
# sudo apt-get install libraspberrypi-dev libraspberrypi-bin
sudo shutdown -r now
raspistill -o test.jpg
scp ubuntu@bluerov:~/test.jpg ~/

If you get stuck, check out this forum post.

Next, install the ROS driver for the camera. At the moment, the ROS driver for the RaspberryPi camera has not been integrated into the standard ROS distribution channels (i.e., you cannot download it through apt.) To install from source:

git clone https://github.com/fpasteau/raspicam_node ~/catkin_ws/src/raspicam

cd ~/catkin_ws/
catkin_make

Wiki: bluerov/Tutorials/Install BlueROV ROS Packages (last edited 2016-02-15 10:12:11 by JoshVillbrandt)