bwi

This repository contains top-level ROS packages for the Building Wide Intelligence (BWI) project of the University of Texas at Austin Computer Science Department.

BWI Repository Hierarchy

Packages contained in various released BWI repostories may depend on other packages at the same or lower levels. Dependencies on packages from higher-level repositories are not permitted.

From top to bottom, the released repositories are:

Installation

As a Docker Image

Currently the BWI base is supported up to Ubuntu 18.04 and ROS Melodic. If you are using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS+, you can install and build the BWI code base as a Docker image using the bwi-docker package.

From Source

You can install all the BWI components normally built from source on either ROS Indigo, Kinetic, or Melodic. For the V4 bots, use Melodic.

First, install ROS Indigo, Kinetic, or Melodic. The Kinetic version is only supported on Ubuntu Xenial, and is only partially functional.

Then, make sure the ROS_DISTRO environment variable is set correctly:

echo $ROS_DISTRO

It may already be. If not, issue the appropriate one of these two shell commands:

$ export ROS_DISTRO=kinetic

$ export ROS_DISTRO=melodic

Next, clone the source repositories:

$ source /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO/setup.bash
$ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
$ cd ~/catkin_ws
$ wstool init src https://raw.githubusercontent.com/utexas-bwi/bwi/master/rosinstall/$ROS_DISTRO.rosinstall

Install all dependencies:

$ rosdep update
$ rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro $ROS_DISTRO -y

If you are setting up a workspace on a BWIbot V4 in Anna Hiss Gym, continue from here with the "Special Installation Instructions for Version 4 Robots" below.

Then, build everything. On a slow computer:

$ catkin build -j2 
$ source devel/setup.bash

Or on a fast computer:

$ catkin build -j6 
$ source devel/setup.bash

Or you can adjust the job limit as you see fit.

Note that the catkin build command from the python-catkin-tools package is required for building on ROS Kinetic and Melodic. On ROS Indigo, you can still use catkin_make instead, although the newer build tool is recommended.

Special Installation Instructions for Version 4 Robots:

The V4 bots at AHG use some additional branches of the utexas-bwi repo. To install these, run the following commands from your ~/catkin_ws directory (they will change directories):

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src/bwi_common
$ git submodule init
$ git submodule update

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src && git clone --branch ahg2s_map https://github.com/utexas-bwi/ahg_common.git

Then build everything from the ~/catkin_ws directory:

$ cd ~/catkin_ws
$ catkin build -j6

The V4 base uses slightly different values for some environment variables. It's important to export them into your environment after sourcing the workspace. To automate that, add the convenience function "sws" to the bottom of your .bashrc file found at ~/.bashrc.

sws() {
  source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
  export SEGWAY_INTERFACE_ADDRESS=10.66.171.1
  export SEGWAY_IP_ADDRESS=10.66.171.5
  export SEGWAY_IP_PORT_NUM=8080
  export SEGWAY_BASE_PLATFORM=RMP_110
  export SEGWAY_PLATFORM_NAME=RMP_110
}
sws

After building your workspace or packages, instead of using "source devel/setup.bash" , simply call the function above by typing:

$ sws

Install pyYAML:

$ pip install -U pyYAML

Then create a password for postgres. Run the script below and follow the promts to enter a password that is not empty:

$ ./src/bwi_common/knowledge_representation/scripts/configure_postgresql.sh

Finally, run the command prepare_knowledge_bwi_ahg:

$ prepare_knowledge_bwi_ahg

At this point, you should run the BWIbot V4 visit doors demo in Anna Hiss Gym to validate the installation.