KevsRobots Learning Platform

Learn ROS with me

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Overview
Setting up the Raspberry Pi 4 environment
Setting Docker for ROS
Build the ROS2 Container
Setting up VSCode
First ROS2 Program
ROS2 Python Packages
Docker and X11
RViz2

Build the ROS2 Container

Use the official docker images to build our ROS2 container

By Kevin McAleer,    2 Minutes

Dockerfile & Docker-Compose.yml

To make the process of building our ROS2 container simpler I have created a dockerfile and accompanying docker-compose.yml file. These two files help us build and then run the ROS2 docker container.

Docker-Compose.yml

The docker-compose.yml file contains instructions on which docker image to use and also any parameters we want to include, such as host device (we’ll want to use the lidar sensor which is found at /dev/ttyUSB0 on the host file system), and also any volume or folder mappings.

Contents of the docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"
services:
 ros2:
   build: .
   # restart: no
   ports: 
     - "3332:3332"
   volumes:
     - /home/kev/ros:/home/ros
     - /home/kev/cubie-1:/ros2
   devices:
     - /dev/ttyUSB0:/dev/ttyUSB0
   tty: true

Folder mappings

We can map local folders from our Raspberry Pi into our container so that any files we create inside or out of the container will show up. Normally any changes made within the container are lost when we shut it down, however by mapping (called binding in Docker) the local host folder to the container we can ensure changes are retained.

We will map two host folders:

/home/kev/ros to /home/ros within the container

/home/kev/cubie-1 to /ros2 within the container

Build the container

  • Change directory - From the terminal, type:
cd cubie-1/docker
  • Docker build - From the terminal, type:
docker build -t ros2 .

Where ros2 is the name of the docker image we have created

Build output on a terminal

Run the container

  • Run the container - From the terminal, type:
docker-compose up -d

The container will now be running, you can check to see if its running using the docker ps command.

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