BSc Thesis - Formation Control of Multi-robot Systems

Implementation and formation control of playmaker and supporter robots in small size soccer league in the context of the Internet of Things.

grSim

The project is based on grSim simulator that was contributed to the SSL community. It performs a physical simulation of omni-directional robots and publishes envoironment network packages. You can either found it from this github link or you can have it by updating your git submodules with cloning this repository.

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/kianbehzad/BScThesis.git

Then go according to the installation file to install it. note. if you wish to install grSim on Windows OS you should use docker. you can use a prebuilt image from this Docker Hub container.

ROS2

To use this project you will need to install ROS2 (this project is developed and tested on Foxy Fitzroy). You can refer to ROS2 installation page in order to install whatever versions you wish.

Installation

This project is based on ROS2 and it can be run on any Operating Systems with ROS2 installed on it. (this project is developed and tested on Ubuntu 20.04)

Linux

ROS2 supports different Linux distributions, any one of them is fine to work with. After installing ROS2, you need to install google protocol buffer. (if you installed grSim, it is already installed)

sudo apt install libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler

And you need to install GLUT if you want to use the project's GUI.

sudo apt install freeglut3-dev

Now we just need to install colcon to build our project.

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions

Go to the project's ROS2 directory and build the entire workspace. (It may take a few minutes for the first time)

cd /path/to/cloned/project/
cd thesis_ws/
colcon build

After a successfull build, source the setup.zsh file as usual by adding the following line to ~/.zshrc

source /path/to/thesis_ws/install/setup.zsh

Now, you can launch the project.

ros2 launch src/pack_util/tools/launch/grsim_launch.py

MacOS and Windows

ROS2 only supports Windows10, macOS Sierra (10.12.x), and macOS Mojave (10.14) at this time. Also the installation is not as stable as Linux. All in all, you can successfully run the project on these platforms but using a virtual machine like Oracle VM VirtualBox is recommended if you insist on using these Operating Systems.

Oracle VM VirtualBox

You can download your suitable version of Oracle VM from this link. Then you need to download an Ubuntu 20.04 Desktop ISO file from the official page.

• Now, Start the VirtualBox application and create a new VM.

• Then name your VM, specify a path for it, and choose Linux 64 bit as it's type.

• Choose the memory size you wish the VM has.

• Then, choose Create a virtual hard disk now and select create.

• After that, choose VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) and select continue.

• It is better to use Fixed size storage type.

• Specify your desired disk size and it's path afterward.

• Now after your VM created, click your VM from the left bar and right click on Controller:IDE section from right menu.

• Choose the Ubuntu 20.04 ISO file you have downloaded.
• Click on start, to start your VM and Install Ubuntu 20.04 on it.
• After the installation you can follow the steps for Linux Installation above.

Optional - Oracle VM VirtualBox

• Running ROS2 nodes on multiple machines
  if you intent to distribute your nodes on different hosts across your local network, you need to change your VM's network preferences.
  • Shutdown your VM, select your VM from VirtualBox application, and click on settings on top of the window.
  • Choose the Network tab from the top, and change the NAT setting to Bridged Adapter.
  • Then choose one of your host's network interfaces from the second dropdown menu.
  • Now your router will assign a seperate IP address to your VM, you can check it out by ifconfig command.

    sudo apt install net-tools
    ifconfig

• Define a shared folder between host and VM (adopted from here)
  To define a shared folder between your host and VM, first you need to have it on your host and then mount it on the VM.
  • Say we want to mount /Users/<username>/ros2_foxy from the host to /home/<username>/ros2_foxy on your VM.
  • Shutdown your VM, select your VM from VirtualBox application, and click on settings on top of the window.
  • Choose the Shared Folders tab from the top, and click on the Add new shared folder icon. (picture at the end of the section)
  • Choose the folder on your host, and put it's name in the second field and leave everything else unchecked. (picture at the end of the section)
  • Run your VM, and run the commands bellow.

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
    

  • from the top of your VM, go to Devices menu -> Insert Guest Additions CD image menu, and let the process finishes.
  • reboot your VM.

    sudo shutdown -r now
    

  • Edit the /etc/fstab file and add the following line at the end. you can use id -u command to get your username ID(uid) - this option is needed to change the ownership of the mounted folder too your user (default is for root user)

    <the name in the above field>    /home/<username>/ros2_foxy    vboxsf    uid=1000    0    0

  • Edit the /etc/modules file and add the vboxsf at the end of it.
  • Now reboot your VM again and the folder should be mounted in your home directory.

• Use CLion to remotely program on your VM
  You can configure host's CLion in a way to use your VM's toolchain, to be able to program and run your software remotely from your host machine.

  • First you need to setup SSH on your VM. (adopted from here)

    • install the following packages.

      sudo apt update
      sudo apt install openssh-server
      sudo apt install ssh
      

    • Verify SSH is running. (you should see Active: active (running) in the output)

      sudo systemctl status ssh
      

    • Disable the firewall

      sudo ufw disable
      

    • now you can SSH to your VM with it's username and IP (ifconfig)

  • Second, follow the instruction from the CLion webpage to set the toolchain of your IDE from VM and do your work from your host.

  • In some cases CLion's editor (not the remote toolchain) may not find some of libraries and header files (especially custom made libraries) in this case you only need to resync the IDE with the remote host manually by choosing the following from the CLion's menu bar Tools | Resync with Remote Hosts.

  • important note if you want to edit a ROS2 package in your remote IDE (which probably you are) you should define all the necessary environment variables in CLion settings. But an easier solution is to create ~/.zshenv file in VM's home directory and source both ROS2's and workspace's setup.zsh in this file instead of in ~/.zshrc. It is not the correct place to source our setup files but the ~/.zshenv file automatically runs with every login (including SSH from CLion) so the needed environment variables will be defined for CLion automatically.