Best Practise for developing with NAO and ROS?

[Stephan Opfer]

Hi NAO Users,

I am not sure, what is the best way to develop and test ROS packages with the NAO Robot. I would like to develop and compile on my desktop pc and deploy the cross-compiled libraries onto the NAOs.

Greetings,
  Stephan

[Okan Aşık]

Hello,

I am also curious about the issue of development. I installed ros on Nao using virtual-nao os. I will develop code on my computer, copy the code/package to virtual-nao and compile and finally I will copy compiled packages to nao robot. Is that the current development cycle or is there anyone who developed cross-compilation cmake for nao robot packages?

Regards,

Okan

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[Vincent Rabaud]

Before even dumping your code to NAO, you can use the NAOqi Python bindings locally.

And THEN cross-compile. There are no official instructions for compiling your own code but please write a tutorial !

It is like we do for the sources in the VM (at http://wiki.ros.org/nao/Installation/compileFromVirtualNao) and you have several examples out there (e.g. https://github.com/ros-nao/nao_sensors/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt#L38 ).

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[Séverin Lemaignan]

Hi,

The way I usually work is by installing a ROS environment that I know is identical between the robot and the VM:
http://wiki.ros.org/nao/Installation/local

And then, as explained on this wiki page (section 2), I build on the VM and rsync on the robot.

In my experience, it's simple and fast.

Cheers,
Séverin

On 27/10/14 12:15, Vincent Rabaud wrote:
> Before even dumping your code to NAO, you can use the NAOqi Python bindings locally.
> And THEN cross-compile. There are no official instructions for compiling your own code but please write a tutorial !
> It is like we do for the sources in the VM (at http://wiki.ros.org/nao/Installation/compileFromVirtualNao) and you have several examples out there (e.g. https://github.com/ros-nao/nao_sensors/blob/master/CMakeLists.txt#L38 ).
>

> On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 11:45 AM, Okan Aşık <asik...@gmail.com <mailto:asik...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I am also curious about the issue of development. I installed ros on Nao using virtual-nao os. I will develop code on my computer, copy the code/package to virtual-nao and compile and finally I will copy compiled packages to nao robot. Is that the current development cycle or is there anyone who
> developed cross-compilation cmake for nao robot packages?
>
> Regards,
> Okan
>

> 2014-10-27 12:29 GMT+02:00 Stephan Opfer <op...@vs.uni-kassel.de <mailto:op...@vs.uni-kassel.de>>:

>
> Hi NAO Users,
>
> I am not sure, what is the best way to develop and test ROS packages with the NAO Robot. I would like to develop and compile on my desktop pc and deploy the cross-compiled libraries onto the NAOs.
>
> Greetings,
> Stephan
>
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[Stephan Opfer]

Hello,

as I understand are Vincent and Séverin compiling their source code on the virtual box. Please correct me, if I misunderstood your posts.

I had a look into the  cross-config.cmake file of the cross-toolchain provided by Aldebaran. All I found are a lot of cmake variables set, which simply forces cmake to use the provided gcc-crosscompiler of Aldebaran (found in the same archive under cross/bin/...).

Wouldn't it be possible to "simply" include this cross-config.cmake file in your NAO-Project-CMakeLists.txt?

For example call "$ catkin_make -DCMAKE_NAOFLAG" and have the following lines in your CMakeLists.txt:

if (CMAKE_NAO_FLAG)
  include(cross-config.cmake)
endif()

Probably you will also need another destination for your cross-compiled binaries, but, if that works, you can spare the VM-Step in your develop/deploy-cycle.

Greetings,
  Stephan

[Vincent Rabaud]

Hi, if you don't use a VM and robotpkg, you will have to compile ROS by yourself.

After talking with Karsten, we see 3 ways:

1) use Aldebaran's toolchain but that requires you to use qiBuild. It is because the CMake files in there are non-standard (e.g. variables are always capitalized like BOOST_SYSTEM_LIBRARIES, instead of the upstream Boost_LIBRARIES)

2) you compile ROS in a VM, export it in a tar with its dependencies, write the proper CMake file for the cross-compilation and make that whole package a toolchain.

3) create your own cross-compile CMake file that uses Aldebaran's toolchain but also redefines a few variables to make it usable by pure CMake (to circumvent the problem in 1). But in that case, you would need to also add a few pure CMake dependencies to build (like poco).

The third one is the one that requires the least amount of work on a daily basis (no need to qibuildize ROS like in 1 or keep moving files like in 2). It would also be reusable for compiling on Windows/OSX. More info here: http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Cross_Compiling

If you start such a work, please announce it: it can go pretty fast.

There might also be something we can use from the Yocto ROS support: http://wiki.ros.org/hydro/Installation/OpenEmbedded

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[Stephan Opfer]

Hi Vincent,

I started with the 3rd option. My setup consists of the ROS beginners tutorial (just talker.cpp), which I changed to let the NAO talk what ever string is published. I tested it with a redirected ROS_MASTER_URI and the NAO started to talk.

I had a look into the cross-config.cmake of the cross-toolchain from Aldebaran. The CMake-Flags set there, were looking promising. So I copied some stuff into my talker-project, which now looks like this:

test_nao_talker/
 -> cmake/
 |--> cross/ //as it is given in the Aldebaran Cross-toolchain
 |--> pthread/  //as it is given in the Aldebaran Cross-toolchain
 |--> cross-config.cmake
 -> src/
 |--> talker.cpp
 -> CMakeLists.txt
 -> package.xml

Afterwards I simply included the cross-config.cmake into the test_nao_talker/CMakeLists.txt: include(cmake/cross-config.cmake)

Unfortunately it wasn't that easy ;-)  My current problem is, that roscpp trys to use pthread and does not find it anymore. I guess because of the settings in the cross-config.cmake file.

Here you can see my catkin_make error:

CMake Error at /opt/ros/indigo/share/roscpp/cmake/roscppConfig.cmake:141 (message):
  Project 'test_nao' tried to find library 'pthread'.  The library is neither
  a target nor built/installed properly.  Did you compile project 'roscpp'?
  Did you find_package() it before the subdirectory containing its code is
  included?
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  /opt/ros/indigo/share/catkin/cmake/catkinConfig.cmake:75 (find_package)
  cnc-naos/test_nao/CMakeLists.txt:11 (find_package)

Actually I was hoping that CMake finds it in "test_nao_talker/cross/i686-aldebaran-linux-gnu/sysroot/usr/lib/libpthread.so". I think, the question is, how can we teach ROS to use the cross-toolchain libraries for the "test_nao_talker" package.

Any suggestions are welcome. :)

Greetings,
  Stephan

[Vincent Rabaud]

Hi, what you should do to speed up the process:

- you get your code to some GitHub repo (without Aldebaran's cross-toolchain of course)
- add a README to say the instructions you are executing (commands that include dowloading the toolchain and unzipping it wherever, catkin_make ...)

You can then file bugs against your code and the community will help you there.

As a first quick sight, I'd say you need to define the CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE to point to the cross-config.cmake (and not include it, that's not how it works, cf http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Cross_Compiling#The_toolchain_file).

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[Stephan Opfer]

Hi, I will setup such a GitHub repo (today or tomorrow).

When I just write "set(CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE cmake/cross-compile.cmake)" catkin ignores it and does not cross-compile it.

Greetings,
  Stephan

[Vincent Rabaud]

Right, that's not the way to do it: you need to do it on the command line -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=cmake/cross-compile.cmake (cf examples of ROS with Arduino/Android here: https://github.com/ros/catkin/issues/484 ). Just announce your repo and we'll complete the README there.

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[Stephan Opfer]

The repository is up and I think we should switch to the new post accordingly: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ros-sig-aldebaran/9XZU8j7wQpU

[heromoga2000]

Hi

can you help me and tell  me how to setup using opennao vm and how to install ros ?

[Dang Thi Hai Ha]

Hi,

How to install virtual NAO:

http://doc.aldebaran.com/1-14/dev/tools/vm-setup.html

How to install ROS:

http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Installation

Or better yet, how to install ROS to work with NAO:

http://wiki.ros.org/action/show/nao/Tutorials/Installation?action=show&redirect=nao%2FInstallation

Have fun! :-)

Ha.

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