[MOOC] Autoware Course - Lecture 1 - Setup the environment

This is my note for lesson 1 of MOOC course: Self-Driving Cars with ROS and Autoware. You should follow the instructions in the course. I only write some notes here to highlight the best practices and how to fix some errors.

Autoware course: https://www.apex.ai/autoware-course
Lecture 1 tutorial: https://gitlab.com/ApexAI/autowareclass2020/-/blob/master/lectures/01_DevelopmentEnvironment/devenv.md.

Docker

This course uses [ADE Development Environment] to deploy examples. This will ensure that all students in the course have a common, consistent development environment.
I added a command to checkout a right version of source code first. This will help avoid unnecessary errors.

git checkout avp-demo

$ cd ${HOME}
$ mkdir adehome
$ cd adehome
$ wget https://gitlab.com/ApexAI/ade-cli/uploads/85a5af81339fe55555ee412f9a3a734b/ade+x86_64
$ mv ade+x86_64 ade
$ chmod +x ade
$ mv ade ~/.local/bin
$ which ade
# Update ade
$ ade update-cli
# Now setup ade
$ touch .adehome
$ git clone --recurse-submodules https://gitlab.com/autowarefoundation/autoware.auto/AutowareAuto.git
$ git checkout avp-demo
$ cd AutowareAuto/
$ ade start
# this will take awhile
$ ade enter

Install ROS 2

master branch don't use ROS Dashing any more, you will need to switch to Foxy here if you run the source code from master branch. Only use these command if you don't switch to avp-demo with git checkout avp-demo below.

ade$ sudo apt update
ade$ sudo apt install ros-foxy-turtlesim
ade$ sudo apt install ros-foxy-rqt-*
ade$ sudo apt install byobu

Install Terminator

Terminator is a terminal emulator

sudo apt install terminator

Fix: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ExecFailed: /usr/bin/dbus-launch terminated abnormally without any error message with following command:

sudo apt-get install dbus-x11

Install Autoware.Auto

We need to install Autoware.Auto from scratch:

Error

/home/vietanhdev/AutowareAuto/src/control/motion_testing/include/motion_testing/motion_testing.hpp:18:10: fatal error: autoware_auto_msgs/msg/trajectory.hpp: No such file or directory
   18 | #include <autoware_auto_msgs/msg/trajectory.hpp>

Run object detection demo

There are some errors in the commands.

Error

ros2 run velodyne_node velodyne_cloud_node_exe __ns:=/lidar_front __params:=/home/${USER}/autowareclass2020/code/src/01_DevelopmentEnvironment/velodyne_node.param.yaml
Package 'velodyne_node' not found

-> Use following command

ros2 run velodyne_nodes velodyne_cloud_node_exe --ros-args --remap "__ns:=/lidar_front" --params-file /home/${USER}/autowareclass2020/code/src/01_DevelopmentEnvironment/velodyne_node.param.yaml

ROS Foxy uses a new way to pass parameters. We need to fix it also: