Advanced Robotics (INFR112132022) software labs

These instructions are written for ARO labs regarding set up on DICE environment.

The lab instructions are given in the instructions notebook. This readme provides you with the instructions for installing the lab requirements. These instructions are very similar to the tutorials instructions.

Set up

On a DICE machine

On DICE, we will clone the lab repository and install the required dependencies. You can "clone" the project to a local folder of your choice. Open a terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and follow the commands below:

• Move to home directory.

cd ~

• Create the aro23 directory if not already done

mkdir -p aro23 && cd aro23

• Clone the lab inside your home directory.

git clone https://github.com/ediaro23/lab/

• Install dependencies

python -m pip install --upgrade pip
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

• You need to update .bashrc to include meshcat-server in PATH. Follow the steps below:
  • Open .bashrc for Editing

    nano ~/.bashrc

  • Add the Following Line to the end of your .bashrc file

    export PATH=$PATH:~/.local/bin

  • Save and close by pressing CTRL + O to save, followed by CTRL + X to exit.
  • Reload .bashrc to apply the changes immediately without restarting the terminal

    source ~/.bashrc

You should be done! See below to check that your installation is working

Linux, Python 3, PyPI

On a Linux system with Python 3.8, you can get the dependencies directly with +pip (see installation procedure and update below):

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

NB: you should consider using a virtualenv

Once you have the dependencies, you can start the server with jupyter notebook

Using and updating the repository

Running the instructions notebook

On your terminal, cd into the lab folder:

cd  ~/aro23/lab/

Now run Jupyter notebook with the command

jupyter notebook .

Click on 'instructions.ipynb ' to open the instructions notebook.

Other helpful instructions

There is a pinocchio cheat sheet available as a pdf. You can also run the notebook "A_pinocchio_cheat_notebook.ipynb" to get a summary of the instructions. Pinocchio is a bit dense and has its own singular API, it might take some time for you to become familiar with it, but trust me, this will prove largely beneficial.

Editing the notebook and updates

If the repository changes (for example when the second part of the lab will be pushed / a bug has been found), you will need to update your local version by "pulling" it from the repository. On a native installation, just go in the folder containing the tutorials and execute git pull

Side notes

Installing pip

Pip is a tool for installing and managing Python packages. You can install it with

sudo apt install python3-pip

The default version of +pip installed by +apt is not up to date, so upgrade it with

python3 -m pip install --upgrade --user

In general, running +pip is likely to run an alias on +pip in /usr, so either run it through python3 as explained above, or make sure your path select the right pip executable in your ~/.local. The option --user is kind of optional for recent +pip version, but removing it should work with a warning.