iRobot Create3 Dance tutorial not working

[bluepra]

Setup: Raspberry Pi 4 Ubuntu 22.04 ROS 2 Humble installed

I have the Pi connected to the Roomba's Create® 3 adapter board via a USB-C to USB-C cable.

I am following this instructions: https://github.com/iRobotEducation/create3_examples/tree/humble/create3_examples_py

This is the command I am running (according to the README): ros2 run create3_examples_py create3_dance

The Roomba does not move at all, and the terminal has this message showing up: [dance_command_publisher] service not available, waiting again

What could be causing this issue? Any help is appreciated!

[carlsondc-ceva]

I'd start with a ros2 service list and ros2 node list to see if the service in question (probably this one ) is visible. If it's not, then I'd check a couple things:

1. Did you make the changes described here to usercfg.txt, cmdline.txt, and network-config to enable ethernet over USB?
2. Is the switch on the create3 set to USB or bluetooth?
3. Are you using the same middleware and ROS_DOMAIN_ID as the create3 (as configured through the web server)?
4. Did you configure the create3 to use a namespace? create3_dance expectes it to be in the root namespace.

[bluepra]

ros2 service list give me:

/dance_command_publisher/describe_parameters
/dance_command_publisher/get_parameter_types
/dance_command_publisher/get_parameters
/dance_command_publisher/list_parameters
/dance_command_publisher/set_parameters
/dance_command_publisher/set_parameters_atomically
/motion_control/set_parameters

ros2 node list gives me:

/dance_command_publisher

The switch is set to USB.

This is what my .bashrc looks like:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
source ~/Robotics/create3_examples_ws/install/local_setup.sh
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp

I didnt change anything about namespaces. I also am using Ubuntu Desktop 22.04.2 LTS found here https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi, and I just followed the regular OS install instructions for Pi's.

I have not change anything in the usercfg.txt, cmdline.txt, and network-config. But my Pi can connect to my wifi.

Hope these details help in narrowing down the issue!

[carlsondc-ceva]

you should be able to see a bunch of other nodes from the create3 platform. I'm still using galactic (firmware G.4.3) so things may differ a bit, but I see the following when I'm not running anything on the pi:

/_internal/composite_hazard
/_internal/kinematics_engine
/_internal/mobility
/_internal/stasis
/mobility_monitor
/motion_control
/robot_state
/static_transform
/system_health
/ui_mgr

Since you don't see those other nodes, I'm guessing either your network or ROS middleware configuration is the problem.

If you connect to the pi in a web browser, is the RMW_IMPLEMENTATION set to rmw_cyclonedds_cpp?

If you didn't make the changes to usercfg.txt, cmdline.txt, and network-config then you will only be able to talk to the create3 over wifi (not USB). That should be fine as long as your wifi network allows multicast. I ran into problems at one point in my office because multicast traffic was only visible to devices that were connected to the same access point -- so if my pi and my create 3 happened to connect to two different AP's, they could ping each other but not discover each others' ROS nodes.

[bluepra]

I am trying to communicate from my Pi to the Roomba via a direct USB C connection. I have configured the USB0 (USB C) port on my Pi to act as an ethernet connection. From my pi when I say ping 192.168.186.2 I get a successful connection. This tells me that the Pi can talk to the Roomba (correct?). I also can go to this IP 192.168.186.2 from my browser and successfully connect to and restart the Roomba. Lastly, I am using the rmw_fastrtps_cpp, and my Roomba also has the same Middleware.

I configured the fastDDS on the Roomba to connect to 192.168.186.2:11811 and copied the same settings into the FastDDS XML configuration file. However, ros2 topic list still does not provide the full list of topics it should have access to.

[shamlian]

I configured the fastDDS on the Roomba to connect to 192.168.186.2:11811 and copied the same settings into the FastDDS XML configuration file. However, ros2 topic list still does not provide the full list of topics it should have access to.

Is there a reason you've used the Fast-DDS discovery server? If there are only two nodes here directly connected, I think that will cause problems. If instead you are using the Pi to get the Create 3 robot onto the Internet (and to connect to a third computer running the example), I think you may have to configure both the pi and that computer as a superclient. See these docs. If you are just ssh'ing into the Pi and running the example from there, and the robot is directly connected to the Pi over USB, you should probably not enable the Fast-DDS discovery server -- just set the RMW and make sure the checkbox is not selected.

Maybe better: can you explain exactly what Ethernet interfaces each of the objects are connected to? And where you are running the example from?

[shamlian]

Also -- I'm confused -- you said you're using Fast-DDS but you also said you have export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp in your .bashrc. Which is it?

[bluepra]

So I tried running the dance demo on 2 different Operating Systems and ROS2 versions.

Ubuntu 22.04 64 bit- Desktop

• I am using ROS2 Humble and I followed these instructions to install https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Installation/Alternatives/Ubuntu-Development-Setup.html which matches https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/setup/ubuntu2204/ pretty closely.
• I have tried both RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp and RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp but neither seem to make the desired result work.
• Like I mentioned, when I do ping 192.168.186.2 I get a successful connection with the Roomba, so I USB connection is likely not an issue.
• ros2 topic list still does not provide the full list of topics it should have access to.
• I only tried Fast-DDS discovery server to see if it would make a difference.

Ubuntu 20.04 64 bit - Server

• For this I followed these instructions https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/setup/pi4/
• I am using ROS2 Galactic
• I used echo "export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp" >> ~/.bashrc
• The dance demo worked in this case!

Hope this helps narrow the issue!

[justinIRBT]

Which firmware is the robot running? If you are trying Humble on Ubuntu you should also be running the latest humble firmware on the robot (H.1.0 as of the time of this post). Until you see topics / services from your terminal, the dance script won’t work, so we should start by trying to get that working. Can you confirm the robot firmware you are using in the robot webserver and while there double check the RMW the robot is configured to. Can you post screenshots of the two webserver pages.

[bluepra]

This is what I have. It looks like my firmware was for galactic. I will update to H.1.0 and report back! Thank you!

[bluepra]

When I do ros2 node list or ros2 topic list it just gets stuck, nothing happens.

Ok so I updated the firmware to be H.1.0, and I also changed the RMW to be CycloneDDS.

This is what my .bashrc looks like on my Pi (Ubuntu 22.04):

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
source ~/Robotics/create3_examples_ws/install/local_setup.sh
source /usr/share/colcon_argcomplete/hook/colcon-argcomplete.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp

Seems like my pi isnt able to communicate with the Roomba via my USB-C connection. any thoughts on this?

When I type in lsusb I get this:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 05e3:0616 Genesys Logic, Inc. hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c05a Logitech, Inc. M90/M100 Optical Mouse
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 413c:2107 Dell Computer Corp. KB212-B Quiet Key Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 05e3:0610 Genesys Logic, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 2109:3431 VIA Labs, Inc. Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

[bluepra]

I disconnected ALL USB devices from my pi, except for the USB C connection to the Roomba and reran lsusb

[shamlian]

Two things, regarding the Ethernet over USB connection: 1) Did you configure your Raspberry Pi as an Ethernet gadget (editing /boot/config.txt and /boot/cmdline.txt), plugging the USB-C from the Create 3 Adapter Board into the USB-C on your Raspberry Pi? 2) Is the switch on the adapter board in the "USB" position (blue LED on the adapter board is off)?

[bluepra]

1. This is what I get when I do ifconfig: usb0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 inet 192.168.186.3 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.186.255 inet6 fe80::b4db:88ff:fe44:52d prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link> ether b6:db:88:44:05:2d txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet) RX packets 37 bytes 1900 (1.9 KB) RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0 TX packets 185 bytes 27284 (27.2 KB) TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
2. The switch on the adapter board is switched to USB and the color of the light is yellow only.
3. When I do ping 192.168.186.2 I get successfully communication. I believe 192.168.186.2 is the default IP of the roomba according to https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/setup/pi4/

[bluepra]

I also don't see /boot/config.txt and /boot/cmdline.txt files on my pi in the /boot folder.

[shamlian]

Given that you are able to ping the robot, my concern seems to be a red herring. I was responding to your lsusb call, but now I'm not sure whether or not lsusb can be used for upstream USB devices (in this case, the robot is upstream of the Pi).

[shamlian]

What did you mean when you said, "Seems like my pi isnt able to communicate with the Roomba via my USB-C connection."? You say you can ping the robot. What happens if you try to access the webserver with something like curl? Do you get a web page? Likewise, in this configuration, what is the output of ros2 topic list ?

[bluepra]

It was just a guess that the pi couldn't communicate with the roomba. Does the ping 192.168.186.2 working mean that the pi CAN communicate via the usb-c connection with the roomba?

ros2 topic list also gets stuck with no output.

Do you want me to launch the Roomba's web server and then try and connect via curl?

[shamlian]

Please, don't guess, and please, give us full output of commands. What does "gets stuck" mean? How long are you waiting? How do you stop the command? As far as "launch the [Create 3 robot]'s webserver" -- it is running all the time, and should be accessible on all of its network interfaces.

[bluepra]

It gets stuck for a long time (30 seconds plus) with no output. Control C doesn't work, and I had to use control Z to get access to the terminal again. Closing the terminal prompts me with an error saying that the process in the background would be killed too.

[bluepra]

How do I access the webserver with curl?

[shamlian]

Do you get a pile of html if you curl 192.168.186.2/index.html from the Pi? That would be more conclusive that you are actually talking to the robot on the USB interface,

[carlsondc-ceva]

FWIW, I've had the ros2 topic/node utilities get unhappy when I'm monkeying around with interface settings. ros2 node list --no-daemon and ros2 topic list --no-daemon (or doing ros2 daemon stop before calling the utility) has occasionally seemed to unjam situations.

[shamlian]

If you are able to "talk" to the webserver using curl, I think the next thing to do would be to get the output of the logs using curl -o logs.txt 192.168.186.2/logs-raw; this will create a logs.txt file that we could dig into.

[bluepra]

curl 192.168.186.2/index.html gives some HTML code (I can post that if that's helpful).

[shamlian]

No need; I think we can confirm that your network connection is working. I think the next thing to do is to take @carlsondc-ceva 's suggestion and bonk ROS 2 on your Pi in the head using ros2 daemon stop before trying ros2 topic list again.

[shamlian]

Oh -- another thought -- if you're using Cyclone DDS, can we also see your XML configuration file (on the Pi)?

[bluepra]

I did ros2 daemon stop and then ros2 topic list and I get the same "stuck" behavior.

[bluepra]

Where can I find the XML configuration file? I didn't create one myself at any point

[shamlian]

If you didn't make one, it doesn't exist! :) That might be a problem source -- Cyclone in particular seems to need to be told which network interface to use. Stand by.

[bluepra]

Just saw this, should I make a XML file?

[shamlian]

Perhaps. Before you do that, without changing or unplugging anything, could you try, from the Pi, curl -X POST http://192.168.186.2/api/reboot to reboot the robot in place? Also, if you could post that logs.txt that I had you download before, that might be helpful.

[bluepra]

Logs from curl -o logs.txt 192.168.186.2/logs-raw logs.txt

I just did curl -X POST http://192.168.186.2/api/reboot and the robot did its restart chime

[bluepra]

The ros2 node list command still doesn't work (same issue)

[shamlian]

OK. Just to be 100% sure, since the robot has restarted, can you briefly try ros2 topic list --no-daemon to see if it hangs?

[shamlian]

could you try topics with also the --no-daemon flag?

[bluepra]

ros2 topic list --no-daemon still hangs :/

[bluepra]

could you try topics with also the --no-daemon flag?

What do you mean by this?

ros2 topic list also hangs

[shamlian]

I meant the thing you did (you did it, but it didn't work. sad face). Might be time to try specifying the network interface using an XML file. AFAIK ros2 topic list hanging is not something wrong with Create. But we're going to try to figure this out!

[bluepra]

appreciate your help! Just let me know what I should put in the XML

[shamlian]

try

<CycloneDDS>
   <Domain>
     <General>
        <NetworkInterfaceAddress>usb0</NetworkInterfaceAddress>
    </General>
   </Domain>
</CycloneDDS>

in a file with the name of your choosing, then set the environment variable export CYCLONEDDS_URI=/path/to/the/xml/profile where /path/to/the/xml/profile is the path and filename to the file you just created and then ros2 daemon stop and then ros2 topic list

[bluepra]

Created cyclone_usb.xml in the my ~ folder. Added this to .bashrc export CYCLONEDDS_URI=/home/robotics_roomba/cyclone_usb.xml

Stopped the ros2 daemon and then did ros2 topic list and i got this: 1678217865.539523 [0] ros2: config: //CycloneDDS/Domain/General: 'NetworkInterfaceAddress': deprecated element (/home/robotics_roomba/cyclone_usb.xml line 4)

and nothing else...its stuck again, had to use Control-Z to get acess to terminal

[bluepra]

Should I try switch to rmw_fastrtps_cpp

[shamlian]

You're welcome to try -- make sure to switch both the robot and the Pi, and also restart the daemon after doing so.

[shamlian]

I am concerned about the log, actually -- could you try reinstalling H.1.0?

[bluepra]

So I swapped to fastrtps on the roomba

And on my pi's .bashrc I have export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp" I also commented the line that says export CYCLONEDDS_URI=/path/to/the/xml/profile

I restarted my Pi, and killed the ROS2 daemon, and then did ros2 topic list and go this:

/parameter_events
/rosout

It didn't get stuck this time, but the roomba topics are missing unfortunately.

[bluepra]

Should I go ahead and reinstall H.1.0 on the roomba? I am using this link https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/releases/h_1_0/ to download it btw.

[shamlian]

What does ros2 topic list --no-daemon --spin-time 10 produce? If this gets you nowhere, I would say it is worth trying to reflash the robot with H.1.0 again. There was an odd message in the log that makes me wonder if it fully updated.

[bluepra]

With the cycloneDDS the ros2 topic list --no-daemon --spin-time 10 would hang.

And with the fastrtps I just get:

/parameter_events
/rosout

I notice that https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/releases/h_1_0/ says to have

Do I need to download/update my cycloneDDS on my pi?

[bluepra]

In the meanwhile I will reinstall the H.1.0

[shamlian]

I suspect you should not need to do anything to your ROS 2 install.