Installing AMBF

Installation:

Tested Platforms:

AMBF has been tested on Ubuntu 16.04, Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04 and Ubuntu 24.04.

AMBF can be compiled without ROS support on Mac OS (Intel and Apple Silicon), please ask for instructions.

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Building:

Make sure to follow only the appropriate ROS 1 or ROS 2 instructions below, and not both.

Step 1

Linux (Ubuntu 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04, 24.04):

Install the following dependencies if not present:

sudo apt install libasound2-dev libgl1-mesa-dev xorg-dev

Install the appropriate ROS 1 or ROS 2 version for your specific Linux distribution based on the instructions here http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Installation.

Step 2

Now we can proceed to clone AMBF to ROS workspace:

cd ~
mkdir -p ros_ambf_ws/src && cd ros_ambf_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/WPI-AIM/ambf.git

If using ROS 1, change to appropriate ROS 1 version which could be either melodic or noetic

source /opt/ros/<version>/setup.bash
cd ~/ros_ambf_ws
catkin_make

If using ROS 2, change to appropriate ROS 2 version which could be either humble or jazzy. This should also work with foxy and possibly future versions of ROS 2.

source /opt/ros/<version>/setup.bash
cd ~/ros_ambf_ws
colcon build

Step 3

Source the correct folder to achieve system-wide availability of AMBF and its ROS modules. This step needs to be run every time you open a new terminal and need to use AMBF or one of its modules.

For ROS 1, this should be:

source ~/ros_ambf_ws/<version>/devel/setup.bash

For ROS 2, this should be:

source ~/ros_ambf_ws/<version>/install/setup.bash

Step 4 (Optional but recommended)

You can also permanently add the install location in your ~/.bashrc with the following command, so that you do not need to re-source (Step 3) every time you open a new terminal.

For ROS 1

echo "source ~/ros_ambf_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Or For ROS 2

echo "source ~/ros_ambf_ws/install/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Reload any already open terminals or run . ~/.bashrc in them to make AMBF and its modules available in those terminals. New terminals from this point do not need Step 3 anymore.