Native Installation

Install Swarm in Blocks on your Ubuntu 20.04

Option A: Automated bash script installation

We made for you one automated way to get into Swarm In Blocks full software on your machine.

If you have already one configuration for Apache that is serving another application, go with manual installation and be careful.

The installation script is presented in this link: install_swarm_in_blocks.sh. The script will install ROS, clone Swarm in Blocks, Clover and PX4 repositories, install dependencies, compile the workspace, install and configure Apache webserver.

Step 1: Download the script

5KB

install_swarm_in_blocks.sh

Swarm In Blocks installation script

Step 2: Run the script

./install_swarm_in_blocks.sh

Step 3: Run the simulation

roslaunch swarm_in_blocks simulation.launch num:=4 new_blocks_page:=true

Option B: Manual installation

If you encounter any problems with the above script, you can resort to manual installation (mostly for debugging).

Prerequisites: Ubuntu 20.04.

Step 1: Updating apt (installation package)

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade 

Step 2: Installing required tools

sudo apt install build-essential git python3-pip python3-rosdep nodejs npm

Step 3: Installing ROS

We recommend installing ROS Noetic for best compatibility:

sudo apt-get install -y curl
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.lis\t'
sudo apt-get update; apt-get install -y python3-pip python3-rosdep python3-rosinstall-generator python3-wstool build-essen\tial ros-noetic-desktop

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

sudo -E sh -c 'rosdep init'
rosdep update

If you prefer, you can install ROS Noetic using the official installation manual (Desktop or Full install).

Step 4: Creating Catkin workspace

Create a workspace for the simulation (we recommend the name "Catkin" for default):

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make
echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

Step 5: Getting Swarm in Blocks sources and dependencies

Cloning from our GIthub repository:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/Grupo-SEMEAR-USP/swarm_in_blocks.git

Installing the necessary dependencies:

/usr/bin/python3 -m pip install -r ~/catkin_ws/src/swarm_in_blocks/requirements.txt

Step 6: Getting Clover sources

Cloning Clover and PX4 dependencies from Github repositorys:

It's important to note that the Clover repository that you must install is from our fork (Semear Group)

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone --single-branch --branch swarm_in_blocks https://github.com/Grupo-SEMEAR-USP/clover.git
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/CopterExpress/ros_led
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/ethz-asl/mav_comm

Also, you should make a symbolic link in order to allow the swarm_station package to find the clovers meshes:

ln -s ~/catkin_ws/src/clover/clover_description/meshes/clover4/ ~/catkin_ws/src/swarm_in_blocks/swarm_station/meshes/

Step 7: Installing dependencies with npm and rosdep

Rosdep:

cd ~/catkin_ws
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -y

Npm:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src/swarm_in_blocks/swarm_station/src/web_terminal
npm install

Step 8: Installing Clover's Python dependencies

/usr/bin/python3 -m pip install -r ~/catkin_ws/src/clover/clover/requirements.txt

Step 9: Downloading PX4

git clone --recursive --depth 1 --branch v1.12.0 https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot.git ~/PX4-Autopilot
ln -s ~/PX4-Autopilot ~/catkin_ws/src/
ln -s ~/PX4-Autopilot/Tools/sitl_gazebo ~/catkin_ws/src/
ln -s ~/PX4-Autopilot/mavlink ~/catkin_ws/src/

Step 10: Installing PX4 dependencies

~/PX4-Autopilot/Tools/setup/ubuntu.sh
pip3 install --user toml

Step 11: Addding Clover airframe

ln -s ~/catkin_ws/src/clover/clover_simulation/airframes/* ~/PX4-Autopilot/ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d-posix/airframes/

Step 12: Installing geographiclib datasets

Mavros package requires geographiclib datasets to be present:

sudo -E sh -c '/opt/ros/noetic/lib/mavros/install_geographiclib_datasets.sh'

Step 13: Building the workspace

Build your workspace (it takes 10~20min):

cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make

Step 14: Installing QGroundControl

sudo -E sh -c "usermod -a -G dialout $USER"
sudo -E sh -c 'apt-get remove -y modemmanager; apt-get install -y gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav'
curl https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/qgroundcontrol/latest/QGroundControl.AppImage -o ${HOME}/QGroundControl.AppImage
chmod a+x ${HOME}/QGroundControl.AppImage

Step 15: Installing Firefox web browser

Installing the recommended Browser:

sudo apt-get update; apt-get install -y firefox

Step 16: Installing apache webserver

Apache will be used for the front-end interface:

sudo apt install apache2

Step 17: Configure apache webserver to serve swarm_in_blocks directory:

sudo sed -i 's@/var/www/html@'"${HOME}"'/catkin_ws/src/swarm_in_blocks@' /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
sudo sed -i 's@/var/www/@'"${HOME}"'/catkin_ws/src/swarm_in_blocks@' /etc/apache2/apache2.conf
sudo a2ensite 000-default.conf
service apache2 reload

This way, to access our homepage you only need to access your localhost through a web browser, by just typing localhost on the address place.

Step 18: Cleaning up

sudo apt-get -y autoremove; apt-get -y autoclean; apt-get -y clean; fstrim -v /

Step 19: Run the simulator

In order to be sure that everything was built correctly, try running the simulator for the first time:

roslaunch swarm_in_blocks simulation.launch num:=2 new_blocks_page:=true