Installing Jackal Desktop Software

Note

If you wish to install the Jackal packages on your computer (e.g. to interface with the physical Jackal robot and/or to simulate Jackal), then proceed with the following instructions below. A prequisite is to make sure you have a working ROS2 Foxy installation set up on your computer.

Add Clearpath Debian Package Repository

Before you can install the Jackal packages, you need to configure Ubuntu’s APT package manager to add Clearpath’s package server:

  1. Install the authentication key for the packages.clearpathrobotics.com repository. In terminal, run:

wget https://packages.clearpathrobotics.com/public.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

  1. Add the debian sources for the repository. In terminal, run:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb https://packages.clearpathrobotics.com/stable/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/clearpath-latest.list'

  1. Update your computer’s package cache. In terminal, run:

sudo apt-get update

Installing from Debian Packages

The preferred way to install Jackal’s packages is using precompiled Debian packages. These packages are available for Ubuntu 20.04.

After your computer is configured to use Clearpath’s debian package repository, you can install the Jackal packages needed for this tutorial. In terminal, run:

sudo apt-get install ros-foxy-jackal-desktop ros-foxy-jackal-simulator

Installing from Source

Jackal packages are available on GitHub, and can be compiled and installed from source if desired:

  1. Create a workspace directory. In terminal, run:

mkdir -p ~/jackal_ws/src

  1. Clone the Jackal repositories into your workspace directory. In terminal, run:

cd ~/jackal_ws/src
git clone -b foxy-devel https://github.com/jackal/jackal.git
git clone -b foxy-devel https://github.com/jackal/jackal_desktop.git
git clone -b foxy-devel https://github.com/jackal/jackal_simulator.git
cd ..

  1. Source the ROS2 Foxy installation. In terminal, run:

source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash

  1. Install additional dependencies. In terminal, run:

rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=$ROS_DISTRO -y

  1. Build the workspace. In terminal, run:

colcon build

  1. You can now source your workspace to make use of the packages you just built. In terminal, run:

source install/setup.bash