How To Install ROS2 Humble Base On Raspberry Pi 4B (FULL INSTALL)

Learn how to install ros-humble-ros-base on Raspberry pi 4B running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server

If you'll be building intelligent robotics applications, chances are you’ll want the power of ROS2 running on a compact, efficient platform like the Raspberry Pi 4B. This guide walks you through the complete process of setting up ROS2 Humble on on a Raspberry Pi running Ubuntu 22.04 Server — from the initial installation to configuring essential tools like colcon and rosdep. By the end, you'll be ready to develop and deploy robust robotics applications on this versatile microcomputer.

Let’s dive in and get your Pi humming with ROS2!

Prerequisite

• First ensure you have the Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server installed on the Raspberry Pi 4B (2GB, 4GB, or 8GB. The higher, the better)

• Also, if you did headless installation, you should be able to communicate with the Pi from your Dev PC via SSH.

All we'll be doing in this tutorial assumes you are able to communicate with your Raspberry Pi 4B running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS server with SSH

Installing ROS Humble Base (not Desktop)

Follow the instructions (step by step) to install ros-humble-ros-base (not desktop) on your Raspberry Pi.

This tutorial follows the official ROS humble installation documentation which can be found here

• Set locale

  locale  # check for UTF-8
  
  sudo apt update && sudo apt install locales
  sudo locale-gen en_US en_US.UTF-8
  sudo update-locale LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
  
  locale  # verify settings

• Setup sources

  sudo apt install software-properties-common
  sudo add-apt-repository universe
  
  sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y
  sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg
  echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo $UBUNTU_CODENAME) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null

• Install ros2 humble (i.e ros-humble-ros-base)

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt upgrade
  
  sudo apt install ros-humble-ros-base
  sudo apt install ros-dev-tools

• Next, add the following command to the .bashrcfile to enable automatic sourcing of the ros humble environment and installed whenever you open a new terminal.

  source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
  
  echo "source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Installing and setting up colcon for Building ROS2 packages

colcon is a build tool required to build your ROS2 packages created in your ros workspace

• Install colcon

  sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions

• Setup colcon_cd

  echo "source /usr/share/colcon_cd/function/colcon_cd.sh" >> ~/.bashrc
  echo "export _colcon_cd_root=/opt/ros/humble/" >> ~/.bashrc

• Setup colcon tab completion

  echo "source /usr/share/colcon_argcomplete/hook/colcon-argcomplete.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

With all the above added to the .bashrc file, the colcon environment and functions will be automatically activated whenever you open a new terminal as well as automatic sourcing of the ros-humble environment.

To learn more about colcon check the link to its documentation here

you should see the following highlighted text (in the image below) at the bottom of your .bashrc file. Run this command: sudo nano ~/.bashrc

Installing rosdep

rosdep is a dependency management utility that can work with packages and external libraries. It is a command line utility for identifying and installing dependencies to build or install a package.

It is most often invoked before before building a package with colcon. It will basiclally download and installing the necessary dependencies a specified in the package.xmlfile so you don't have to manually install each dependencies again.

To learn more about rosdep check out its documentation here

Follow the instructions below to install rosdep:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3-rosdep2

sudo rosdep init #NOTE:this might give an error, do not worry, just continue

rosdep update

Install setuptools For Building ROS2 Python Packages

sudo apt install python3-pip

pip3 install setuptools==58.2.0

Creating A ROS2 Workspace

In the root folder of your Raspberry Pi (i.e the home directory)

• In the root folder of your Raspberry Pi (i.e the home directory), create a ros workspace folder. I would be using this workspace name - ros-robot-ws- as seen in the image above.

  mkdir -p ~/ros-robot-ws/src

• change directory into the root ros workspace folder

  cd ~/ros-robot-ws

• build the ros workspace initially with colcon (while still in the root workspace folder)

  colcon build

  you should now see three other folders - build, install, and log - apart from the src folder already created earlier. run ls

• Let's setup automatic sourcing for the created workspace - ros-robot-ws- in the .bashrc file so that it is automatically sourced whenever you open a new terminal. Run this in terminal:

  echo "source ~/ros-robot-ws/install/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Test with helloworld package

• Open a new terminal (to auto source your ros2 environment and workspace) and cd into your ros workspace's src folder

  cd ~/ros-robot-ws/src

• Clone this ros2 helloworld cpp and python package

  git clone https://github.com/samuko-things/helloworld_ros2.git

• Change directory into the root ros workspace folder

  cd ../

• Optionally, run rosdep to install the packge dependencies specified in the package's package.xmlfile

  rosdep install -i --from-path src --rosdistro humble -y

• Build the package with colcon

  colcon build --symlink-install

• Open two seperate terminals. In one of the terminals, run:

  ros2 run helloworld_cpp talker

• In the other terminal, run:

  ros2 run helloworld_py listener

ROS2 Communication between the Raspberry Pi and your Dev PC

• On your Dev PC to which the Raspberry Pi is connected and communicating with (which also has ros humble desktop installed and ros workspace setup). Clone and build the helloworld package as you did on the Raspberry Pi above.

• Source your workspace (if no automatic sourcing was setup)

• Run on a terminal on your Dev PC

  ros2 run helloworld_py talker

• Run on a new terminal on the Raspberry Pi (to auto-source your ros2 environment and workspace):

  ros2 run helloworld_cpp listener

Optional (Install Cyclone DDS)

If you would be using the Pi in ROS2 for navigation and some other high speed data transfer, install and use the Cyclone DDS in place of the default Fast DDS.

sudo apt install ros-humble-rmw-cyclonedds-cpp
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
echo "export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp" >> ~/.bashrc