microROS-ESP32

Technologies

• MacOS 15.3 Intel Chip
• Docker Engine 27.5.1
• Docker Desktop 4.38.0
• ROS Jazzy
• ESP-IDF 5.2
• ESP32-S3 with 8MB PSRAM

References

• https://github.com/micro-ROS/micro_ros_espidf_component
• https://github.com/espressif/esp32-camera
• https://micro.ros.org/docs/tutorials/advanced/handling_type_memory/

MacOS Docker Limitation

Unable to mount /dev/tty.usb* devices even when running docker with --privileged argument. Espressif has a tool to remotely connect to a serial port.

Issue

• docker/for-mac#900

Solution

• Remote Serial Port

Packages

This will be populated with different packages as I go.

camera_publisher

Build

Terminal 1

docker run -it --rm --user espidf --volume="/etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro" -v $(pwd):/microROS-ESP32 -v /dev:/dev --privileged --ipc host --workdir /microROS-ESP32 microros-esp32:latest /bin/bash -c "cd sources/camera_publisher; idf.py --port 'rfc2217://host.docker.internal:4000?ign_set_control' menuconfig build flash monitor"

Ensure PSRAM is enabled. The ESP32-S3 chip I am using has a 8 MB PSRAM. PSRAM Mode is Octal Mode PSRAM, and the clock RAM speed is 80MHz.

Ensure to set MicroROS Agent WIFI Adress and Port.

Terminal 2

docker run -it --rm --privileged --ipc host -p "8888:8888/udp" microros/micro-ros-agent:jazzy udp4 --port 8888 -v6

Terminal 3

esp_rfc2217_server.py -v -p 4000 /dev/tty.usbmodem14401

Output

I used rqt to monitor the image topic and visualize. Feel free to use any other ros tool to visualize the image topic.

gpio_interrupt_publisher

Publish to a ros topic on GPIO interrupt trigger.

reconnection_example

This example demonsrates the ability to reconnect to a ros agent. De-init node entities gracefully before trying to reconnect. Then, reinitialize necessary components in order to establish a healthy connection to the microros agent before publishing dummy data.

1. Agent running as initial state.
2. Disconnect agent. Observe Lost connection output.
3. Start micro-ros agent.
4. Confirm connection.

micro-ROS tutorials I came across this helpful micro-ROS tutorial above where I discovered there is a way to ping agent.

Using the rmw_uros_ping_agent function to check connection and break the main loop.

if (rmw_uros_ping_agent(100, 3) != RMW_RET_OK)
{
    ...
    printf("Lost connection to micro-ros-agent\n");
    ...
}

joystick_controller

Turtlesim

Publish cmd_vel (geometry_msgs/msg/Twist) using a 2-axis Joystick connected to esp32.

Use the official ROS turtlesim to test and observe the movement on screen.

Result

espnow_example

TODO

Extras

Display forwarding MacOS

Check out this guide.

X11 forwarding on macOS and docker