Environment configuration

If you intend to use the Sensory technology or one of the Robots, you probably want to configure your shell environment accordingly. We have implemented a number of convenience functions that are managed in the Robot House environment configuration project (rh-env). Please feel free to contribute.

Robot environment

The function robot_env allows you to set relevant environment and ROS workspace for each robot individually. After calling the function, the current environment will be displayed using coloured letters in the command prompt of your terminal. The following variables might be set depending on the environment you specify:

$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
$ROS_MASTER_URI
$ROBOT
$ROBOT_ENV
…

Set up the environment using the following command:

$ robot_env [-h|--help] [-l|--local] [-o|--overlay] [ROBOT ...]
  Print and set robot environments

  Options:
   -h | --help:    Print this help text
   -l | --local:   Set ROS_MASTER_URI to http://localhost:11311
   -o | --overlay: Use the workspace at ~/$ROBOT_ws as a personal overlay

  Arguments:
   ROBOT:        A valid robot configuration.

The ROBOT argument thereby denotes the robot that you want to use. You can find the relevant argument in their respective documentation page. Typing robot_env without any parameters also gives you a list of all currently supported robots. If you use the --local option, the command set the $ROS_MASTER_URI variable to https://localhost:11311 to allow working without the robot, for example in simulation contexts. When the --overlay option is present the command uses a workspace in your home directory as an overlay. An error will be displayed if --overlay is given but there is no workspace in the folder $HOME/$ROBOT_ws/ or if the workspace is not correctly configured.

For example, to configure your environment to work with fetch and use your own catkin workspace as an overlay, type in the following:

$ robot_env -o fetch
Loading robot space from /opt/robots/fetch/setup.bash
Loading personal robot overlay from /home/<user>/fetch_ws/devel/setup.bash
Loading environment from /opt/robots/etc/fetch.sh

Note

You can specify multiple robots with the robot_env where variables are potentially overridden by robots that are given later in the argument list.

A special robot configuration common, which is usually available, configures a ROS workspace that is shared between all robots (and for example contains the Robot House ROS packages (uh_robot_cfg). With this configuration, the ROS master is set to shakuras.

Note

The environment is automatically set to common on every new account and also if you logged in as the demo user.

ROS IP

A special variable, $ROS_IP, needs to be set correctly in some use cases. We provide the function ros_ip to set this variable semi-automatically.

$ ros_ip [-h|--help] [-l|--list] [DEVICE]
  Determine and set ROS_IP variable

  Options:
   -h | --help: Print this help text
   -l | --list: List network devices

  Arguments:
   DEVICE:      Set ROS_IP to a the IP address of a specific device.
                If empty the first non loopback device will be used.

If you call the function without parameters, it will try to determine the correct address by itself:

$ ros_ip
Setting ROS_IP to xx.x.x.xxx (default device: enp0s31f6)

Note

If the computer is equipped with more than one network device, the command will present you with the alternative device names.

You can also call the function with the device name as a parameter to set the correct address for this device:

$ ros_ip docker0
Setting ROS_IP to xx.x.x.xxx (specific device: docker0)