Software: ROS 2 Humble Installation

Overview

ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill is the Long-Term Support (LTS) release of ROS 2, supported until May 2027. This guide covers installation on Ubuntu 22.04 for all three hardware options (Workstation, Jetson, Cloud).

Installation Time: 30-45 minutes (including download and verification)

Prerequisites

Before installing ROS 2, ensure you have:

• Ubuntu 22.04 LTS installed and updated
• Stable internet connection (will download ~1.5GB)
• At least 10GB free disk space
• Sudo privileges

Installation Steps

Step 1: Set System Locale

ROS 2 requires UTF-8 locale support:

# Check current locale
locale

# If not already set, configure 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

# Verify
locale

Step 2: Add ROS 2 Repository

# Install software-properties-common
sudo apt install software-properties-common

# Add universe repository
sudo add-apt-repository universe

# Add ROS 2 GPG key
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

# Add ROS 2 repository to sources list
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

Step 3: Install ROS 2 Humble Desktop

Desktop vs Base:

• Desktop: Includes GUI tools (RViz, rqt, Gazebo integration) - Recommended for this course
• Base: Command-line only, lighter weight

# Update package index
sudo apt update

# Upgrade existing packages
sudo apt upgrade -y

# Install ROS 2 Humble Desktop (full installation)
sudo apt install ros-humble-desktop -y

# Install development tools
sudo apt install ros-dev-tools -y

# Installation size: ~1.8GB
# Time: 15-20 minutes

What Gets Installed:

• ROS 2 core libraries
• RViz (3D visualization tool)
• rqt (Qt-based GUI framework)
• colcon build system
• Python 3 client library (rclpy)
• C++ client library (rclcpp)
• Common message types (std_msgs, geometry_msgs, sensor_msgs)

Step 4: Environment Setup

Add ROS 2 to your shell configuration so it's sourced automatically:

# Add to ~/.bashrc for automatic sourcing
echo "source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

# Source for current terminal session
source ~/.bashrc

# Verify ROS_DISTRO environment variable
echo $ROS_DISTRO
# Expected output: humble

Important Environment Variables:

Variable	Purpose	Default Value
ROS_DISTRO	ROS 2 distribution name	humble
ROS_VERSION	ROS major version	2
ROS_PYTHON_VERSION	Python version	3
ROS_LOCALHOST_ONLY	Restrict to localhost (security)	0 (disabled)
ROS_DOMAIN_ID	DDS domain (multi-robot isolation)	0

Step 5: Install Additional ROS 2 Packages

Install commonly used packages for robotics development:

# Gazebo simulation integration
sudo apt install ros-humble-gazebo-ros-pkgs -y

# ROS 2 control (for robot manipulation)
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros2-control ros-humble-ros2-controllers -y

# Navigation2 (for autonomous navigation)
sudo apt install ros-humble-navigation2 ros-humble-nav2-bringup -y

# TF2 transforms (spatial relationships)
sudo apt install ros-humble-tf2-tools ros-humble-tf-transformations -y

# Image processing
sudo apt install ros-humble-image-transport ros-humble-image-pipeline -y

# Python dependencies
pip3 install transforms3d pyquaternion

Verification

Test 1: Check ROS 2 Version

ros2 --version

Expected Output:

ros2 cli version 0.25.3

Test 2: Run Talker-Listener Demo

Terminal 1 (Talker):

ros2 run demo_nodes_cpp talker

Expected Output:

[INFO] [1733750420.123456789] [talker]: Publishing: 'Hello World: 1'
[INFO] [1733750421.123456789] [talker]: Publishing: 'Hello World: 2'
...

Terminal 2 (Listener):

ros2 run demo_nodes_py listener

Expected Output:

[INFO] [1733750420.234567890] [listener]: I heard: [Hello World: 1]
[INFO] [1733750421.234567890] [listener]: I heard: [Hello World: 2]
...

✅ Success: If listener receives messages from talker, ROS 2 is working correctly!

Test 3: Check Available Nodes

# List running nodes
ros2 node list

# Expected output:
# /talker
# /listener

# Get info about a node
ros2 node info /talker

Test 4: Visualize with RQT

# Launch rqt (GUI tool for ROS 2)
rqt

• Click Plugins → Introspection → Node Graph
• You should see /talker and /listener nodes connected by /chatter topic

Test 5: Check TF2 (Transforms)

# View TF tree
ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames

# This generates a PDF showing transform tree
# Open with: evince frames.pdf

Create Your First Workspace

ROS 2 uses workspaces to organize packages. Let's create a workspace for this course:

# Create workspace directory
mkdir -p ~/physical_ai_ws/src
cd ~/physical_ai_ws/src

# Clone a sample package
git clone https://github.com/ros/ros_tutorials.git -b humble

# Build workspace
cd ~/physical_ai_ws
colcon build --symlink-install

# Source workspace overlay
source install/setup.bash

# Verify workspace
echo $COLCON_PREFIX_PATH
# Should include ~/physical_ai_ws/install

Directory Structure:

~/physical_ai_ws/
├── build/        # Build artifacts (CMake cache, object files)
├── install/      # Installed packages (binaries, libraries)
├── log/          # Build logs
└── src/          # Source code for ROS 2 packages
    └── ros_tutorials/

Add Workspace to .bashrc

# Automatically source workspace on terminal startup
echo "source ~/physical_ai_ws/install/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Common Issues and Solutions

Issue 1: "Unable to locate package ros-humble-desktop"

Cause: ROS 2 repository not added correctly.

Solution:

# Remove and re-add repository
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list
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
sudo apt update

Issue 2: "colcon: command not found"

Cause: ros-dev-tools not installed.

Solution:

sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions -y

Issue 3: Talker/Listener Not Communicating

Cause: Firewall blocking DDS communication or wrong ROS_DOMAIN_ID.

Solution:

# Disable firewall temporarily (testing only)
sudo ufw disable

# OR allow DDS multicast
sudo ufw allow from 224.0.0.0/4
sudo ufw allow 7400:7500/udp

# Check if nodes are on same domain
echo $ROS_DOMAIN_ID
# Should be same value in both terminals (default: 0)

Issue 4: "ImportError: No module named 'rclpy'"

Cause: ROS 2 environment not sourced.

Solution:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
# OR
source ~/.bashrc  # if already added to .bashrc

Jetson-Specific Notes

Pre-Installed ROS 2: Some JetPack images come with ROS 2 pre-installed. Check first:

# Check if ROS 2 already installed
dpkg -l | grep ros-humble

# If already installed, skip to verification step
# If not, follow standard installation steps above

ARM Architecture: All ROS 2 Humble packages support ARM64 (no special steps needed).

Cloud-Specific Notes

Headless Operation: Cloud instances don't need GUI tools. Use ros-humble-ros-base instead:

# Lighter installation without GUI tools
sudo apt install ros-humble-ros-base -y

# This saves ~500MB disk space and installation time

Remote Visualization: To use RViz/rqt on cloud instance, set up X11 forwarding:

# On local machine, connect with X11 forwarding
ssh -X ubuntu@<CLOUD_IP>

# Launch RViz
rviz2
# GUI will display on your local machine

Performance Optimization

1. Enable Shared Memory Transport (FastDDS)

For same-machine communication, shared memory is faster than UDP:

# Create FastDDS XML configuration
cat > ~/fastdds_config.xml << 'EOF'
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<profiles xmlns="http://www.eprosima.com/XMLSchemas/fastRTPS_Profiles">
    <transport_descriptors>
        <transport_descriptor>
            <transport_id>SHM</transport_id>
            <type>SHM</type>
        </transport_descriptor>
    </transport_descriptors>
</profiles>
EOF

# Export configuration path
echo "export FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE=~/fastdds_config.xml" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

2. Increase DDS Buffer Size (for Large Messages)

# For high-resolution images or point clouds
echo "export RMW_FASTRTPS_PUBLICATION_MODE=ASYNCHRONOUS" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Next Steps

✅ ROS 2 Humble installed and verified!

Continue to:

1. Module 1: ROS 2 Fundamentals - Learn nodes, topics, services, actions
2. Software: Isaac Sim Setup - For Module 3 (Weeks 8-10)
3. Gazebo Installation (coming soon) - For Module 2 (Digital Twin Simulation)

Additional Resources

• ROS 2 Official Documentation
• ROS 2 Tutorials
• ROS Discourse Forum
• ROS 2 GitHub

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Installation Complete! Ready to start Module 1.