Robotics Middleware Framework (RMF)

The OpenRMF platform for multi-fleet robot management.

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Install ROS 2 Galactic

First, please follow the installation instructions for ROS 2 Galactic. If you are on an Ubuntu 20.04 LTS machine (as recommended), here is the binary install page for ROS 2 Galactic on Ubuntu 20.04.

Setup Gazebo repositories

Setup your computer to accept Gazebo packages from packages.osrfoundation.org.

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y wget
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'
wget https://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Binary install

OpenRMF binary packages are available for Ubuntu Focal 20.04 for the Foxy, Galactic and Rolling releases of ROS 2. Most OpenRMF packages have the prefix rmf on their name, therefore, you can find them by them by searching for the pattern ros-<ro2distro>-rmf, e.g., for galatic it would be:

apt-cache search ros-galactic-rmf

RMF Demos

A good way to install the rmf set of packages in one go is to install the one of the main RMF Demos packages. This will pull all the rest of the OpenRMF packages as a dependency. The core of RMF demos is contained on the rmf_demos package. However, if you want to install it with simulation support, you should install the rmf_demos_gz or rmf_demos_ign package which come with gazebo or ignition support respectively. As an example, to install the ROS 2 Galactic release with gazebo support package, you would run:

sudo apt install ros-galactic-rmf-demos-gz

Building from sources

If you want to get the latest developments you might want to install from sources and compile OpenRMF yourself.

Additional Dependencies

Install all non-ROS dependencies of OpenRMF packages,

sudo apt update && sudo apt install \
  git cmake python3-vcstool curl \
  qt5-default \
  -y
python3 -m pip install flask-socketio
sudo apt-get install python3-colcon*

Install rosdep

rosdep helps install dependencies for ROS packages across various distros. It can be installed with:

sudo apt install python3-rosdep
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Download the source code

Setup a new ROS 2 workspace and pull in the demo repositories using vcs,

mkdir -p ~/rmf_ws/src
cd ~/rmf_ws
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-rmf/rmf/main/rmf.repos
vcs import src < rmf.repos

Ensure all ROS 2 prerequisites are fulfilled,

cd ~/rmf_ws
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro galactic -y

Compiling Instructions

On Ubuntu 20.04:

cd ~/rmf_ws
source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash
colcon build --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

NOTE: The first time the build occurs, many simulation models will be downloaded from Ignition Fuel to populate the scene when the simulation is run. As a result, the first build can take a very long time depending on the server load and your Internet connection (for example, 60 minutes).

Run RMF Demos

Demonstrations of OpenRMF are shown in rmf_demos.

Docker Containers

Alternatively, you can run RMF Demos by using docker.

Pull docker image from open-rmf/rmf github registry (setup refer here).

docker pull ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf/rmf_demos:latest
docker tag ghcr.io/open-rmf/rmf/rmf_demos:latest rmf:latest

Run it!

docker run -it --network host rmf:latest bash -c "export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=9; ros2 launch rmf_demos_gz office.launch.xml headless:=1"

This will run rmf_demos in headless mode. Open this link with a browser to start a task.

(Experimental) User can also run rmf_demos in “non-headless” graphical form, via rocker.

Roadmap

A near-term roadmap of the entire OpenRMF project (including and beyond rmf_traffic) can be found in the user manual here.

Integrating with RMF

Instructions on how to integrate your system with OpenRMF can be found here.