| Note: This tutorial assumes that you have completed the previous tutorials: Installing ROS on your Ubuntu system. |
 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. |
Cross-Compiling ROS for the Raspberry Pi
Description: Instructions how to cross-compile ROS bare-bones for the Raspberry Pi on an Ubuntu systemTutorial Level: INTERMEDIATE
Contents
Install a cross-compiler toolchain
Before you can cross-compile ros you need to install a toolchain capable of producing executables for the pi
cd /opt sudo git clone https://github.com/raspberrypi/tools.git raspberrypi-tools
In order for the linker to find the pi's libraries you have to mount some of the pi's directories on your development pc
sudo mkdir /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf sudo chown <your userid>:<your groupid> /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/ sshfs <pi userid>@<pi ip-address>:/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/ sudo mkdir /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf sudo chown <your userid>:<your groupid> /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/ sshfs <pi userid>@<pi ip-address>:/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/ mkdir -p ~/mnt/pi sshfs <pi userid>@<pi ip-address>:/ ~/mnt/pi
Create and initialize a workspace
mkdir ~/Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws cd ~/Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws rosinstall_generator ros_comm --rosdistro melodic --deps --tar > melodic-ros_comm.rosinstall wstool init -j8 src melodic-ros_comm.rosinstall
Create a toolchain configuration file
vi ~/Projects/ros-pi/toolchain.cmake
and make this it's contents
set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux) set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_VERSION 1) set(CMAKE_LIBRARY_ARCHITECTURE arm-linux-gnueabihf) set( CMAKE_C_COMPILER "/opt/pi-tools/arm-bcm2708/arm-rpi-4.9.3-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc") set( CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER "/opt/pi-tools/arm-bcm2708/arm-rpi-4.9.3-linux-gnueabihf/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++") #set( CMAKE_C_COMPILER "/opt/pi-tools/arm-bcm2708/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-raspbian-x64/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc") #set( CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER "/opt/pi-tools/arm-bcm2708/gcc-linaro-arm-linux-gnueabihf-raspbian-x64/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++") #set( CMAKE_C_COMPILER "/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-gcc") #set( CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER "/usr/bin/arm-linux-gnueabihf-g++") #set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH "/opt/pi-tools/arm-bcm2708/arm-rpi-4.9.3-linux-gnueabihf/arm-linux-gnueabihf/sysroot/") set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH "/home/erik/mnt/pi") #set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "-Wl,-rpath-link,/home/erik/mnt/pi/lib/arm-linux/gnueabihf" CACHE STRING "" FORCE) set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_PROGRAM NEVER) set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_LIBRARY ONLY) set(CMAKE_FIND_ROOT_PATH_MODE_INCLUDE ONLY) include_directories(/home/erik/mnt/pi/usr/include/arm-linux-gnueabihf/)
Patch the cmake configuration files
In order to successfully configure and compile ros_comm you we need to patch a number of CMakeLists.txt files
First download the patch from github and extract it in ~/Projects/ros-pi/
Now apply the patch by issueing:
cd ~/Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws patch -p1 < ../ros_melodic_pi.patch
Cross-compile ros_comm
Finally we can start cross-compiling, issue:
cd ~/Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws ./src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated --install -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/home/erik/Projects/ros-pi/toolchain.cmake
If cmake cannot find any dependencies (e.g. required libraries) you will have to install the libraries -dev package using su apt-get install <library>-dev on the Raspberry Pi and re-execute the above command.
When compilation finishes the directory ~/Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws/install_isolated will contain the cross-compiled ros_comm system. You will have to copy that directory over to the pi eg:
scp -r ~Projects/ros-pi/ros_catkin_barebones_ws pi@<ip-address>/opt/ros/melodic
Then before doing anything ros related on the pi you have to setup the ros environment by issuing:
source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash
