This page is describing the upcoming ROS2 version of the MRS UAV System (however, it may be still outdated). If you are looking for ROS1 version of the docs, follow to https://ctu-mrs.github.io/docs/1.5.0/introduction/.
Deployment using standalone Docker
Docker is a platform that allows you to build, share, and run applications quickly in a repeatable and isolated way. It uses containers which are like extended versions of chroot.
This page will describe how to run a Docker Compose session of the MRS UAV System using Lazydocker and Tmux. For more info about what those are and how to install them, please check the prerequisites.
Get the mrs_docker repo
Clone the mrs_docker repository, then under deployment/ros2/lazydocker you'll find tmux.sh, session.yml and folders representing a specific drone configuration.
In this example, we'll use uav30 with up.sh and down.sh wrappers for docker commands.
Configure environment variables
The values in the stack.env file will be set in every service from compose.yaml, this is set as an argument to docker compose in up.sh and down.sh.
For more info about setting the environment variables, check the native installation.
Start the compose session
Before you start the session, you should edit compose.yaml according to your needs, for example to add or remove sensors your drone uses. The main image used will be ctumrs/mrs_uav_system.
On the drone
You can use ./up.sh to start a session in the background and ./down.sh to end it.
Running ./up.sh -h will show you the arguments that can be passed to the script, notably -n which will make the script not try to overwrite colcon_workspace.
These scripts source setup.sh, in it the SESSION_NAME variable is set which will prefix every resource created by the compose session like volumes and containers:
just_flying_shared_data
just_flying_zenoh
Remote
For this to work, the Docker daemon on the drone must be configured according to the instructions at docker-host, we also recommend this ssh configuration.
Edit the session.yml file and change DOCKER_HOST and the rest of the arguments to the hostname of your drone and then run ./tmux.sh. Alternatively, you can run it without tmux like export DOCKER_HOST=tcp://uav30:2375 && ./up.sh
If you wish, you can add more windows and control multiple drones with different up.sh scripts. After starting tmux, you'll get an overview of the session with lazydocker and the uav status, courtesy of mrs_uav_status.
To exit, hit the killing shortcut: ctrl+a k (ctrl+a and then k). A menu will appear in which you confirm the selection.
Useful info
When running lazydocker, you can see that an init container has exited, this is expected for the system to run properly.
We define the init service in compose.yaml and run it before all others for the purpose of creating volumes and filling them with shared data with a command like:
docker compose cp . init:/etc/docker
Using docker compose up will skip these steps so refrain from using it unless you make the system to work without up.sh.
When using DOCKER_HOST, the image you run will need to be available on the drone, in case you need to transfer an image from your host, you can setup a local registry or run a command like:
docker save ctumrs/mrs_uav_system:stable | docker -H tcp://uav30:2375 load