Getting Started

The previous section explained the base installation of ROS Indigo/Kinetic on the Raspberry Pi. To use other packages is a bit tricky, but the following guide provides a convenient way of installing the packages on the Pheeno.

First, change back to the main directory.

$ cd

From here, we will make a directory called catkin_ws with a child directory called src.

$ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src

Finally, we change directory to the src directory and initialize the workspace.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
$ catkin_init_workspace

This new catkin workspace will allow us to install other ROS packages.

Getting the rosserial Package

rosserial is required for communication between the Raspberry Pi and the Teensy board. Our project requires three packages within the repository: rosserial_client, rosserial_arduino, and rosserial_python. To attain these files, we need to use git clone within the src folder.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src

# For ROS Indigo
$ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/ros_drivers/rosserial.git

# For ROS Kinetic
$ git clone -b jade-devel https://github.com/ros-drivers/rosserial.git

The -b flag indicates that we would like to use the ROS Indigo specific branch of their repository. The default branch for the project is currently only for ROS Jade.

Getting the common_msgs Package

The base installation of ROS only comes with standard messages (std_msgs). To get other message types such as Twist and action messages, we need to install the common_msgs package. Again, we will use git clone.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src

# For ROS Indigo
$ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/ros/common_msgs.git

# For ROS Kinetic
$ git clone -b kinetic-devel https://github.com/ros/common_msgs.git

We again pull from the ROS Indigo specific branch of the repository.

Getting the actionlib Package

This is an optional download entirely dependent on your use case. This is typically a default package for ROS; however, the ros_comm installation from before does not contain it. To download, we just need to clone the indigo-devel branch from the official ROS GitHub repository.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src

# For ROS Indigo
$ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/ros/actionlib.git

# For ROS Kinetic
$ git clone -b kinetic-devel https://github.com/ros/actionlib.git

Getting the cv_bridge Package

The pacakges within the vision_opencv repository contain files for interfacing ROS with OpenCV. In ROS, the image message type is not compatible with any OpenCV functions. Therefore, the cv_bridge bridge package has some nice functions for converting image messages to OpenCV Mat variables and vica versa. To install, we will clone from the ros-perception GitHub repository from their ROS indigo development branch.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src

# For ROS Indigo
$ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/ros-perception/vision_opencv.git

# For ROS Kinetic
$ git clone -b kinetic-devel https://github.com/ros-perception/vision_opencv.git

Getting the pheeno_ros Package

To get our ROS package for the Pheeno, we just need to clone it from our organization repository.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src

# For ROS Indigo
$ git clone -b indigo-devel https://github.com/ACSLaboratory/pheeno_ros.git

# For ROS Kinetic
$ git clone -b kinetic-devel https://github.com/ACSLaboratory/pheeno_ros.git

Installing the Packages

Once the packages download, we can then install the packages using catkin_make. Remember to be within the catkin_ws directory and not the src directory when running the following commands.

$ cd ~/catkin_ws
$ catkin_make -j2
$ catkin_make install -j2

Installing PlatformIO

PlatformIO is not a necessary package, but it is definitely helpful when deploying multiple Pheenos. Teensy requires a small GUI to upload files into the microcontroller. Using PlatformIO circumvents this by allowing uploaded code using the command line, which is great if you want to ssh into the Pheeno. If you are ok with using a GUI each time you want to upload code to the Teensy, then you are more than welcome to skip this section.

For those who do want the package, we just need to do a quick pip installation.

$ cd
$ sudo pip install -U platformio

Next, create a directory that will act as a project folder. For example, we used the inventive name of Teensy as our project folder and then went into the directory.

$ mkdir Teensy
$ cd Teensy

From here, we will use PlatformIO to initialize the folder for work.

$ platformio init --board teensy31

The --board teensy31 argument provides the workspace the knowledege we will be working with a Teensy 3.2 board. The command above creates 2 empty directories and a project file. Place all the Arduino/Teensy library files within the lib directory and the actually file you wish to upload within the src directory. Now within the Teensy directory, run the following commands.

$ cd ~/Teensy
$ platformio run
$ platformio run --target upload

Both PlatformIO commands will download some pertinent Teensy microcontroller files and then begin the upload process. The above commands only need to be run once. Every subsequent upload to the Teensy only requires the second command to be run (it is also much faster than the first run).

$ platformio run --target upload