pepper_os_humble

Docker with ROS2 Humble and naoqi_driver2 for Pepper 2.5.

• pepper_os_humble
  • Recommendation
  • Release
  • Build the environment
  • Compress to lzma
  • Installation on pepper
  • Test ROS2
  • Test naoqi_driver2
    • Start naoqi_driver2
    • Test naoqi_driver2
  • Future works

Recommendation

It is recommended to set Pepper's IP with:

$ export PEPPER_IP=x.x.x.x #(i.e 169.254.0.0)

in the .bash_profile of Pepper or on any computer that will be used to communicate with Pepper.

For clarity and simplification, the documentation assumes that the variable is set.

Release

A plug-and-play environment is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pW4Q36QXR29MyWEb5wtkeABo-9eMvh5G/view?usp=sharing if you don't want to compile everything from scratch. From there go to Installation on pepper.

Build the environment

The environment can be built using the Dockerfile. This requires gentoo_on_tmp.tar.lzma archive in the same directory. This one can be created using:

docker run --entrypoint /tmp/gentoo/executeonprefix neaum/gentoo_prefix_32b:latest  "tar -c --lzma -f - -C /tmp gentoo" > ~/gentoo_on_tmp.tar.lzma

Here we are using a 32b version of gentoo prefix build in 11/2023 that is a snapshot of the current gentoo tree at this time. For a more up-to-date version, please consider rebuilding the prefix from scratch using scripts in dedicated folder.

Compress to lzma

Compressing the environment to lzma is necessary as Pepper has limited resources. The entire environment is about ~8GB and will be reduced to about ~2GB. In comparison, Pepper has about 25GB of space available.

$ docker run -it pepper_os_humble:latest

#Outside docker in another terminal
$ docker cp CONTAINER_ID:/data/home/nao/pepper_os.tar.lzma ./pepper_os.tar.lzma

CONTAINER_ID being the ID of the running container (nao@CONTAINER_ID)

Installation on pepper

First, check whether there is enough space available on Pepper to install the archive.

$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ df -t ext3

The archive requires ~8GB to be copied and uncompressed.

Once there is enough space available, the archive can be copied and uncompressed safely.

$ scp pepper_os.tar.lzma nao@$PEPPER_IP:/home/nao/
$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ tar -J -xvf ./pepper_os.tar.lzma
$ rm pepper_os.tar.lzma

Test ROS2

ROS2 can be tested with the following commands:

$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker
#The terminal should display: 'Publishing: "Hello world: x"'

2nd terminal

$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp listener
#The terminal should display: 'I heard: [Hello world: x]'

The python equivalent can be tested with demo_nodes_py instead of demo_nodes_cpp.

Test naoqi_driver2

Start naoqi_driver2

$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ ros2 launch naoqi_driver naoqi_driver.launch.py nao_ip:=$PEPPER_IP network_interface:=MACHINE_INTERFACE

MACHINE_INTERFACE should be 'wlan0' if Pepper is on wifi or 'eth0' if Pepper connected directly via an ethernet cable.

Alternatively, an alias has been made in .bash_profile

$ nao_driver

The ip and network interfaces will be automatically fetched.

Test naoqi_driver2

$ ssh nao@$PEPPER_IP
$ ros2 topic list

Will return a list of all the topic available.

#On a computer
$ source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
$ export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://$PEPPER_IP:11311
$ rviz2 rviz

To start rviz2 and display the topic of interest (Add -> By topic).

Citations

If you use this project, please consider citing:

@incollection{buche2023robocup,
  title={RoboCup@ Home SSPL Champion 2023: RoboBreizh, a Fully Embedded Approach},
  author={Buche, C{\'e}dric and Neau, Ma{\"e}lic and Ung, Thomas and Li, Louis and Wang, Sinuo and Bono, C{\'e}dric Le},
  booktitle={Robot World Cup},
  pages={374--385},
  year={2023},
  publisher={Springer}
}

Acknowledgment

This project is heavily inspired by the awesome work of Sam Pfeiffer and is really nice CLI of a gentoo prefix for Pepper.