ROS2 Foxy node for computer vision tasks inference on Versal VCK190 together with Husky Rover and OAK-D Lite depth camera

Assumptions

The goal of Work Package 300 is to develop a framework that enables performing deep learning inference together with Robot Operating System (ROS2) directly on the Xilinx Versal VCK190 developer board. Additionally, the framework can grab color and depth images from a commonly available sensor (in this case it is Luxonis OAK-D Lite) and publish them to ROS2 topics, and also can control the Husky robot using ROS2 messages.

Hardware and software requirements

Below you can find the list of hardware and software that we use for this project.

Software

Vitis 2022.1
Vitis HLS 2022.1
Vivado 2022.1
Petalinux 2022.1

Hardware

Host PC with Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS.
Xilinx Versal VCK190 developer board.
Luxonis OAK-D Lite depth camera.
Husky robot with Ouster OS1-64 lidar sensor.
IMU sensor.

Development tools

VS Code - good IDE for remote development.
Tmux - terminal multiplexer, allows to detach and reattach to a running session.
ROS2 Foxy - host installation enables the generation of ROS2 messages and services.
Picocom - serial communication terminal.

Workflow

Create project and developer board device configuration

The main part of this step is based on the VCK190 Base TRD document. It contains all the necessary information about the VCK190 board and how to create a project for it with working DPU inference. Follow 1 to 4.4 steps from the document and then continue with the steps below to generate the Petalinux image and copy it to an SD card.

Note, that $WORKSPACE variable is the path to the petalinux project directory generated inside vck190-base-trd. In our case it is /home/put/Projects/vck190-base-trd/petalinux/xilinx-vck190-base-trd/.

# COPY DEDICATED VCK190 FILES TO THE PROJECT
cp $WORKSPACE/../../overlays/xvdpu/kernels/binary_container_1.xsa $WORKSPACE/project-spec/hw-description/system.xsa
cp $WORKSPACE/../../overlays/xvdpu/kernels/binary_container_1.xclbin $WORKSPACE/images/linux/
cp -r $WORKSPACE/../../overlays/xvdpu/apps/*  $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-base-trd/recipes-apps

# BUILD PROJECT
petalinux-build

# GENERATE BOOT FILES
petalinux-package --boot --u-boot --dtb $WORKSPACE/images/linux/system.dtb --qemu-rootfs no --force

# GENERATE BOOT IMAGE
petalinux-package --wic --bootfiles "binary_container_1.xclbin ramdisk.cpio.gz.u-boot boot.scr Image BOOT.BIN"

# COPY BOOT IMAGE TO SD CARD
sudo dd if=$WORKSPACE/images/linux/petalinux-sdimage.wic of=<DEVICE> status=progress conv=sync

Petalinux configuration

Changes in the Petalinux configuration are required to enable some features. You can edit it using petalinux-config tool.

Set MAC address for the ethernet interface.

Subsystem AUTO Hardware Settings  --->
    Ethernet Settings  --->
        Disable: Randomise MAC address
        Set: Ethernet MAC address
        Enable: Obtain IP address automatically

Enable startup from SD card.

Image Packaging Configuration  --->
    Root filesystem type (INITRD)  --->
        Enable: INITRD

Set hostname.

Firmware Version Configuration  --->
    Set: Host name
    Set: Product name
    Set: Firmware version

Rootfs configuration

Changes in the rootfs are required to configure some features. You can edit it using petalinux-config -c rootfs tool.

Ensure dropbear SSH server is enabled.

Image Features  --->
    Enable: ssh-server-dropbear

Enable debug tweaks and auto-login to enable remote development.

Image Features  --->
    Enable: debug-tweaks
    Enable: auto-login

Kernel configuration

Some changes in kernel modules are required to enable some USB features. You can edit it using petalinux-config -c kernel tool.

Changes:

Enable CONFIG_USB_SERIAL_PL2303 module to enable Prolific USB-UART converter.
Enable USB_SERIAL_XSENS_MT module to enable Xsens MTi USB-UART converter.
Enable INPUT_JOYSTICK and INPUT_JOYDEV modules to activate joystick support.

Robot Operating System (ROS2-Foxy) configuration

This part is mostly based on the ROS 2 Humble Hawksbill with Yocto and PetaLinux article.

Steps:

Clone modified meta-ros package:

git clone https://github.com/PUTvision/put-meta-ros $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-ros

Edit configuration file: $WORKSPACE/build/conf/bblayers.conf and add parts:

add headers:

# define the ROS 2 Yocto target release
ROS_OE_RELEASE_SERIES = "honister"

# define ROS 2 distro
ROS_DISTRO = "foxy"

append sources:

${SDKBASEMETAPATH}/../../project-spec/meta-ros/meta-ros2-foxy \
${SDKBASEMETAPATH}/../../project-spec/meta-ros/meta-ros2 \
${SDKBASEMETAPATH}/../../project-spec/meta-ros/meta-ros-common \

Create destination image directory:

    mkdir -p  $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-user/recipes-images/images

and copy our configuration file:

    cp $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-ros/put_sources/petalinux-image-minimal.bbappend $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-user/recipes-images/images/`

Application configuration

Each layer below clone into the $WORKSPACE/project-spec/meta-user/recipes-apps/ directory.
Our application layers:
- put-meta-base-config - Base configuration containing common things like bashrc, etc.
- put-meta-depthai-core - DepthAI core package. Based on depthai-core sources. It enables the usage of DepthAI API in C++ and Python.
- put-meta-depthai-ros - ROS bindings for DepthAI. Based on depthai-ros/foxy sources. It provides ROS2 nodes for DepthAI API.
- put-meta-husky - Husky mobile robot package for Petalinux usage. Based on husky/foxy-devel package.
- put-meta-xsens - modified Xsens package. Based od bluespace_ai_xsens_ros_mti_driver.

Onboard configuration (first boot)

Connect via USB using serial console (115200 baud rate, 8N1, no flow control).
```
sudo picocom -b 115200 /dev/ttyUSB1
```
Note: You have to use USB1 port.

Then, set bash as default shell (.bashrc and .bash_profile are used by default)
```
chsh -s /bin/bash root
```
Call bash command to start bash shell. You should see welcome message, together with some information about the system: ETHERNET IP ADDRESS and ROS_DOMAIN_ID.

After that, you can login via SSH using root user and root password.

Create ROS2 inference engine node

mkdir -p ~/ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_ws/src

git clone https://github.com/PUTvision/ros2_fpga_inference_node.git inference_node/
cd ~/ros2_ws

colcon build
source install/setup.bash

Note: Note that actually the repository is private. You have to contact with the author to get access to it.

Usage:

# run inference engine
ros2 run inference_node inference_engine

Scripts below are added to Systemd services and you don't need to run it.

# run imu node
ros2 launch bluespace_ai_xsens_mti_driver xsens_mti_node.launch.py

# run husky node
ros2 launch husky_base put_base.launch.py

# run camera node
ros2 launch depthai_cognition rgb_depth_publisher.launch.py

Example inference

Known issues

Booting process is performed 3 times. It is caused by the fact that the system is not able to find the rootfs partition.
Sometimes, during a boot process, the system hangs with a message like: "No found devices in /dev...". In this case, you have to reboot the system.
When booting without Internet connection, it is required to set datatime manually. Otherwise, the ROS system will hang. Because we set date -s "2023-01-01 12:00:00" as systemd service, it is required to update the date after 2023.
Boot time is very long. From switching on the power to begin of communication with the Husky robot, it takes about 2 minutes.

Acknowledge

This work was funded by European Space Agency OSIP, PO number: 4000138073, COGNITION project.