Notes for using Arduino with ROS

Setup Notes

ROS Libraries

Install ros libraries

$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-rosserial-arduino
$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-rosserial

Arduino Libraries

The rosserial Arduino library does not support the M0 Pro so a few changes have to be made. Install the latest version from github via the instruction on the ROS wiki. Then replace the file '/rol_lib/ArduinoHardware.h' with ArduinoHardware.h. In summary of the changes, some cases have been added to force the serial definitions based upon use of the M0 Pro:

...
#elif defined(USE_M0PRO_NATIVE)
    #define SERIAL_CLASS Serial_
#elif defined(USE_M0PRO_PROGRAMMING)
    #include <HardwareSerial.h> // Arduino AVR
    #define SERIAL_CLASS HardwareSerial
...
#elif defined(USE_M0PRO_NATIVE)
            iostream = &SerialUSB;
...

In the Arduino sketch file it must have definitions:

#define USE_USBCON
// Use this for Native USB port
#define USE_M0PRO_NATIVE
// Use this for Programming USB port
// #define USE_M0PRO_PROGRAMMING

Custom Messages

To use custom messages with Arduino, first create the custom message, then make sure ros_serial is installed. This can be done by adding it as a build dependency in the relevant package.xml file:

<build_depend>rosserial_arduino</build_depend>

and installing dependencies for the project:

$ rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

Then from your catkin workspace run:

$ source devel/setup.bash
$ rosrun rosserial_arduino make_libraries.py ~/Arduino/libraries

This will create the ros_lib arduino library folder in the arduino library directory. Any desired location can be specified.