We can install the rosserial packages on Ubuntu using the following commands:

1. Installing the rosserial package binaries using apt-get:

• In Indigo:

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

• In Jade:

    $ sudo apt-get install ros-jade-rosserial ros-jade-rosserial-arduino ros-jade-rosserial-server

2. For installing the rosserial_client library called ros_lib in Arduino, we have to download the latest Arduino IDE for Linux 32/64 bit. Following is the link for downloading Arduino IDE: https://www.arduino.cc/en/main/software

• Here we download the Linux 64 bit version and copy the Arduino IDE folder to the Ubuntu desktop.

3. Arduino requires JAVA runtime support to run it. If it is not installed, we can install it using the following command:

        $ sudo apt-get install java-common

4. After installing JAVA runtime, we can switch the arduino folder using the following command:

        $ cd ~/Desktop/arduino-1.6.5  

5. Start Arduino using the following command:

        $ ./arduino

• Shown next is the Arduino IDE window:

6. Go toFile | Preference for configuring the sketchbook folder of Arduino. Arduino IDE stores the sketches to this location. We created a folder called Arduino1 in the user home folder and set this folder as the sketchbook location.

7. We can see a folder called libraries inside the Arduino1 folder. Switch to this folder using the following command:

        $ cd ~/Arduino1/libraries/

•  If there is no libraries folder, we can create a new one.

8. After switching into this folder, we can generate ros_lib using a script called make_libraries.py, which is present inside the rosserial_arduino package. ros_lib is rosserial_client for Arduino, which provides the ROS client APIs inside an Arduino IDE environment.

        $ rosrun rosserial_arduino make_libraries.py .

rosserial_arduino is ROS client for arduino which can communicate using UART and can publish topics, services, TF, and such others like a ROS node. The make_libraries.py script will generate a wrapper of the ROS messages and services which optimized for Arduino data types. These ROS messages and services will convert into Arduino C/C++ code equivalent, as shown next:

• Conversion of ROS messages:

    ros_package_name/msg/Test.msg  --> ros_package_name::Test
  

• Conversion of ROS services:

    ros_package_name/srv/Foo.srv  --> ros_package_name::Foo
  

For example, if we include #include <std_msgs/UInt16.h> , we can instantiate the std_msgs::UInt16 number.

If the script make_libraries.py works fine, a folder called ros_lib will generate inside the libraries folder. Restart the Arduino IDE and we will see ros_lib examples as follows:

We can take any example and make sure that it is building properly to ensure that the ros_lib APIs are working fine. The necessary APIs required for building ROS Arduino nodes are discussed next.