coros

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Jumpstart ROS developent with no headache! Full browser support. OpenGL support with no need of a physically atachted GPU.

📦 Included

ROS

• full ros distro (currently melodic)
• rqt and all plugins
• rviz
• carla ros bridge

IDE (accessible through the browser)

• full python (2.7) environment
• visual studio code server

🏃 Start the service

There are two provided start and stop scripts - one for windows, the other one for unix systems. First pull the github project to get these scripts with git clone https://github.com/gismo07/coros.git.

windows

1. cd utils-windows
2. .\start-windows.cmd

unix

1. cd utils
2. sudo chmod +x ./start.sh
3. ./start.sh

💻 Access the environment

• to open the IDE, simply open the browser and go to localhost:80
• The password is currently set to dev@ros
• to see rviz or some other gui stuff, open another browser tab localhost:6080/vnc.html and click connect

💾 Data storage

Per default all perisistent data is located at the host pc (assuming windows for now) under C:/ros-persistent-data. Create this folder before starting the container.

How to bind to a local folder

If you want to bind a existing folder of the host to the docker container, the docker-compose.yaml file is used for that. For each folder, a new volume section has to be added:

        volumes:
            - type: bind
              source: /<PATH_TO_FOLDER_ON_HOST>
              target: /<TARGET_DESTINATION_ON_THE_CONTAINER>
              volume:
                nocopy: true  # just keep that

🚘 Carla integration

Since version 1.1 COROS comes with a preinstalled version of the Carla PythonAPI and ROS bridge. Currently we use Carla version 0.9.10.1.

The Carla simulation itself is not part of COROS to maintain platform independence

Start Carla

To use the Carla-Ros bridge, make sure that Carla is running and accessible over the network.

Linux users with NVIDIA GPU

1. Get the right carla docker image:

   sudo docker pull carlasim/carla:0.9.10.1
   

2. Make sure the package xhost is available on your system. If not:

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install xhost
   

3. start carla while forwarding the x context:

   xhost local:root
   sudo docker run \
     -e SDL_VIDEODRIVER=x11 \
     -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY \
     -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
     -p 2000-2002:2000-2002 \
     -it \
     --gpus all \
     carlasim/carla:0.9.10.1 ./CarlaUE4.sh -opengl
   

4. alternatively, carla can also be started without graphical output:

   xhost local:root
   sudo docker run \
     -e SDL_VIDEODRIVER=offscreen \
     -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY \
     -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix \
     -p 2000-2002:2000-2002 \
     -it \
     --gpus all \
     carlasim/carla:0.9.10.1 ./CarlaUE4.sh -opengl
   

Windows users

1. Download the 0.9.10.1 version from the offical carla releases.

2. Start the carla exe located under CARLA_0.9.10.1\WindowsNoEditor\CarlaUE4.exe:

   ./CarlaUE4.exe -Carla-server -windowed
   

Start the ROS bridge

Within COROS everything is allready setup to communicate with carla.

Open a new terminal and start the ros bridge example:

roslaunch carla_ros_bridge carla_ros_bridge_with_example_ego_vehicle.launch

🔧 Configuration

The environment comes shipped with a docker-compose.yaml to start the service and manage some parameters:

version: '3.7'
services:
    headless-ros-vnc:
        ports:
            - '80:8080'
            #- '5900:5900'
            - '6080:6080'
        volumes:
            - type: bind
              source: C:/ros-persistent-data
              target: /my_ros_data
              volume:
                nocopy: true
        image: johannhaselberger/coros

coros makes use of three open ports:

• 8080: access to visual studio code server
• 5900: the default vnc port (could be theoretically accessed with any vnc client, however, as the port is forwarded via noVNC that's not intended)
• 6080: access to the novnc web interface

Important: for each instance of coros these ports have to be assigned to available host-ports!

📥 Install Packages Permanently

To avoid installing the same packages over and over again after each container reboot, it makes sense to create your own COROS image.

1. Create a new Dockerfile (e.g. Dockerfile.customCoros)
2. Within the image derive from johannhaselberger/coros
3. Install the packages, e.g. git with:

   RUN apt-get update && DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y \
       git &&\
       rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
   

4. Build and tag the image with:

   sudo docker build --compress -f Dockerfile.customCoros --force-rm --rm -t coros:custom .
   

5. Set the target image within utils/docker-compose.yaml and utils-windows/docker-compose.yaml to Dockerfile.customCoros

😱 Known issues

Mounting errors on windows

1. start docker with admin rights
2. right click on the docker system tray icon -> Settings
3. Under Shared Drives set the checkbox for the C drive

Access denied errors

Try to start the service with sudo rights. On windows open our shell with admin rights.

Operating system linux cannot be used on this platform error

This is mainly a windows error. Right klick on the docker tray icon and select switch to linux containers.

I can see some remote topics, however no data can be received

That's a very common ROS network issue:

1. make sure you can ping the remote machine
2. add all remote host names and your own host name to \etc\hosts on all machines
3. restart the ROS master

Timeout from Carla ROS bridge

Depending on your specific setup, make sure you enter the correct IPs within the Carla launch files. These can be found at: /carla_rb_ws/src/carla_ros_bridge/launch/. Also there is a configuration file at /carla_rb_ws/src/carla_ros_bridge/config/settings.yaml.