Install ROS noetic on Raspberry pi 4

Introduction

ROS (Robot Operating System) is one of the most popular open-source robotic frameworks used for building robot applications. ROS Noetic, the latest stable release, brings improvements and new capabilities over its predecessors. The Raspberry Pi, a widely used single-board computer known for its low cost, small size, and full Linux capabilities, is a popular choice in robotics and IoT projects. Install ROS Noetic on a Raspberry Pi 4 enhances the platform, providing robot enthusiasts and developers with an affordable and versatile environment for designing, programming, and testing robot applications and prototypes.

In this article, we will explore how to install ROS Noetic from source on the Raspberry Pi 4. This includes preparing the Pi by updating and installing prerequisite packages, compiling and building ROS from source code repositories, and verifying the ROS installation. We will also look at some optimizations that can be applied for better ROS performance on the Pi. By following this guide, readers will be able to set up a fully functional ROS Noetic workspace on their Raspberry Pi 4 to begin developing and experimenting with robotics applications.

Preparing the Raspberry Pi 4 for ROS Noetic

The first step is to prepare a fresh Raspberry Pi OS install on the Pi 4. This involves:

Downloading and flashing the latest Raspberry Pi OS image to an SD card.

Expanding the file system partition on first boot to use the entire SD card space.

Refreshing introduced bundles with sudo able get update && sudo adept get overhaul.

Installing some necessary build tools with sudo apt-get install build-essential python3-dev python3-pip python3-rosdep python3-catkin-tools.

Configuring network and WiFi to ensure internet access.

It is also recommended to swap the GPU memory reservation from 64MB to 128MB in config.txt for ROS performance. Overclocking to a modest level like 1.5GHz further boosts speed.

Once baseline system setup is complete, the next step is preparing for ROS installation by initializing rosdep. Rosdep is a tool used to track system dependencies of ROS packages:

sudo apt-get install python3-rosdep

sudo rosdep init

rosdep update

These steps install rosdep and initialize/update the rosdep database which will be used later in the build process.

Compiling and Building ROS Noetic from Source

Now we are ready to compile ROS Noetic from source. The steps are:

• Create a catkin ROS workspace:

mkdir -p ~/ros_noetic/src

cd ~/ros_noetic/

catkin init

• Checkout the ROS packages from the source code repository:

git clone -b noetic-release https://github.com/ros/rosdistro.git src/rosdistro

• Install build dependencies using rosdep:

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=noetic -y

Compile packages:

catkin build

• Source setup file to configure environment:

source devel/setup.bash

This process will take some time as it builds and compiles all core ROS packages from source. The end result is a fully configured ROS Noetic workspace ready to be used.

Optimizing ROS Performance on Raspberry Pi 4

Some optimizations can be applied to improve ROS performance and reduce latency on the Pi 4:

• Overclock the Pi 4 GPU/CPU for a substantial speed boost through raspi-config.
• Increase GPU memory split to 256MB or 512MB to offload processing from the CPU.
• Use a USB 3.0 flash drive for the ROS workspace instead of the SD card for faster I/O.
• Disable unnecessary services like Bluetooth, printing via raspi-config.
• Use a wired Ethernet connection over WiFi for reliability in robot applications.
• Compile ROS with certain optimizations like -Ofast during catkin build.
• Optimize ROS package configurations to reduce CPU/memory load.
• Profile and optimize performance bottlenecks in robot applications built using ROS.

With optimizations, even complex robotics applications can run smoothly on the Raspberry Pi 4. It achieves real-time control performance comparable to Intel/AMD desktops.

Validating the ROS Installation

To verify the ROS installation, we can run some basic ROS commands and demos:

• Check ROS master URI: rosversion
• Print ROS parameters: rosparam list
• Print active ROS nodes: rosnode list
• Check packages: rospack list
• Launch demo nodes: roslaunch turtle_teleop keyboard_teleop.launch

The turtle_teleop demo moves a turtlebot simulation around using keyboard keys. We can also try building and running simple ROS packages or launch files of our own.

Using ROS and Raspberry Pi 4 for Robotics Projects

With a fully set up ROS Noetic environment, here are some example robotics projects that can be developed and tested on the Raspberry Pi 4:

• Mobile robot control: A wheeled robot base with sensors can be controlled using ROS navigation stacks.
• ROS IOT bridge: Connect sensors and actuators to ROS using languages like Python for IoT/home automation.
• Computer vision: Use OpenCV and deep learning for tasks like object detection, facial recognition etc.
• SLAM navigation: Build simultaneous localization and mapping solutions fusing data from cameras, encoders.
• Motion planning: Develop task and motion planning algorithms for multi-DOF robotic arms.
• Simulation: Simulate complex robotic systems in ROS/Gazebo and test controllers virtually.
• 3D printing: Design printable ROS robots, print parts and assemble working prototypes at low cost.
• Science experiments: Build ROS science or education robots for experiments/demonstrations.

The Raspberry Pi provides a full workflow from designing, simulating, controlling to deploying ROS robotics applications on affordable and portable hardware.

Conclusion

In conclusion, by following this guide readers can set up a complete ROS Noetic development environment on their Raspberry Pi 4. This opens up the exciting possibility of learning robotics programming with ROS while designing, building and testing real robot applications and prototypes in the real world. The Raspberry Pi is ROS compatible out of the box, supporting the entire robotics workflow within its affordable single board computer form factor. With ROS on board, the Pi 4 becomes a powerful platform for inventing, exploring and advancing robotics technology for researchers, students as well as hobbyists alike.