Intel® RealSense™ Camera with ROS 2 Sample Application#

This tutorial tells you how to:

Launch ROS nodes for a camera.
List ROS topics.
Confirm that Intel® RealSense™ camera topics are publishing data.
Retrieve data from the Intel® RealSense™ camera (data coming at FPS).
Visualize an image from the Intel® RealSense™ camera displayed in rviz2.

This Intel® RealSense™ with ROS 2 Sample Application can be run using two different types of Intel® RealSense™ cameras. The next section explains how to run this sample application using an Intel® RealSense™ camera connected through USB (for example, Intel® RealSense™ camera D435i). The subsequent section focuses on an Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457 in MIPI mode, which is connected to an Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller.

Using Intel® RealSense™ camera connected through USB#

Connect an Intel® RealSense™ camera (for example, Intel® RealSense™ D435i) to the host, through USB.

Install the librealsense2 and realsense2 tools:

sudo apt-get install -y ros-humble-librealsense2-tools

Download and install the Intel® RealSense™ camera with ROS 2 sample application:
```
sudo apt-get install -y ros-humble-realsense2-tutorial-demo
```
Set up the ROS 2 environment:
```
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
```
Run the Intel® RealSense™ camera with ROS 2 sample application:
```
ros2 launch realsense2_tutorial realsense2_tutorial.launch.py
```
Expected output: The image from the Intel® RealSense™ camera is displayed in rviz2, on the bottom left side.
To close this, do the following:
- Type Ctrl-c in the terminal where the tutorial was run.

Using Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457 on an Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller #

The following steps are required to set up the Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller to support the Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457.

Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller Setup#

Connect an Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457 to the Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller as shown in the below picture. Now, power-on the target.

../../../../_images/rs_tutorial_Axiomtek_gmsl_camera_connection.png

Note

Select the “MIPI” mode of the Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457 by moving the select switch on the camera to “M”, as shown in the below picture.

../../../../_images/MIPI_USB_Switch_in_D457.jpeg

BIOS settings#

Go to the BIOS menu by pressing “Del” or “Esc” button when the board is powered on. The following BIOS settings should be set to enable Intel® RealSense™ Depth Camera D457 support on an Axiomtek Robox500 ROS 2 AMR Controller.

Intel Advanced Menu -> Power & Performance -> CPU-Power Management Control -> C States -> < Disable > (Note: If enabled, fps drops)
Intel Advanced Menu -> System Agent (SA) Configuration -> MIPI Camera Configuration -> < Enable > (Note: Enable all four cameras in this menu)
Camera BIOS settings.

Camera BIOS settings#
BIOS setting	Camera 1	Camera 2	Camera 3	Camera 4
MIPI Port	0	1	2	3
Lane user	x2	x2	x2	x2
Port speed	2	2	2	2
I2C Channel	I2C5	I2C5	I2C5	I2C5
Device0 I2C Address	12	14	16	18
Device1 I2C Address	42	44	62	64
Device2 I2C Address	48	4a	68	6c

Install `librealsense2` and `realsense2` tools#

sudo apt install -y ros-humble-librealsense2-tools

Install `intel-ipu6` (`intel-ipu6-dkms`) driver#

Create a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ipu6.conf file and add the lines of the listing below. This will prevent the loading of the existing default intel_ipu6_isys kernel module.

# kernel builtin ipu6 driver and realsense D4XX driver clash with intel-ipu6-dkms installation.
blacklist intel_ipu6_isys
blacklist intel_ipu6_psys
blacklist intel_ipu6

Reboot the target.
Install the intel-ipu6-dkms:
```
sudo apt install -y intel-ipu6-dkms
```
Run the following command for dkms to force-install the intel-ipu6 driver:
```
dkms install --force ipu6-drivers/20230621+iotgipu6-0eci8
```
Check the dkms status by using the following command:
```
$ dkms status
ipu6-drivers/20230621+iotgipu6-0eci8, 5.15.0-1048-intel-iotg, x86_64: installed
```
If the dkms status is not “installed”, then rerun the command from step number 4.
modprobe the installed intel-ipu6 driver:
```
sudo modprobe intel-ipu6-isys
```
Note

The modprobe command must be run after every system reboot. This is because the intel-ipu6-isys kernel module is not loaded by OS at boot. It must be loaded manually using the above command.

After installation, check the status of the loaded intel-ipu6-isys kernel module. The kernel module loaded must be /lib/modules/5.15.0-1048-intel-iotg/updates/dkms/intel-ipu6-isys.ko as shown below:

$ modinfo intel-ipu6-isys | head -3
filename:       /lib/modules/5.15.0-1048-intel-iotg/updates/dkms/intel-ipu6-isys.ko
description:    Intel ipu input system driver
license:        GPL

Add the user to the video and render group#

# Add the $USER to the video group
sudo usermod -a -G video $USER

# Add the $USER to the render group
sudo usermod -a -G render $USER

Install and run the Intel® RealSense™ camera with ROS 2 sample application#

Download and install the Intel® RealSense™ camera with ROS 2 sample application:
```
sudo apt-get install -y ros-humble-realsense2-tutorial-demo
```
Set up the ROS 2 environment:
```
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
```
Run the following command to bind the Intel® RealSense™ Depth camera D457 with intel-ipu6 driver with metadata enabled:
```
rs_ipu6_d457_bind.sh
```
Run the Intel® RealSense™ camera with ROS 2 sample application:
```
ros2 launch realsense2_tutorial realsense2_tutorial.launch.py use_sub_camera:=false
```
Expected output: The image from the Intel® RealSense™ camera is displayed in rviz2, on the bottom left side.
To close this, do the following:
- Type Ctrl-c in the terminal where the tutorial was run.