ROS/MAVROS Installation Guide

MAVROS is a ROS 1 package that enables MAVLink extendable communication between computers running ROS 1 for any MAVLink enabled autopilot, ground station, or peripheral. MAVROS is the "official" supported bridge between ROS 1 and the MAVLink protocol.

While MAVROS can be used to communicate with any MAVLink-enabled autopilot, this documentation explains how to set up communication between the PX4 Autopilot and a ROS 1 enabled companion computer.

:::warning The PX4 development team recommend that all users upgrade to ROS 2. This documentation reflects the "old approach". :::

Installation

:::note First install ROS and PX4 following the instructions in Development Environment on Linux > ROS/Gazebo Classic. :::

:::tip These instructions are a simplified version of the official installation guide. They cover the ROS Melodic and Noetic releases. :::

MAVROS can be installed either from source or binary. We recommend that developers use the source installation.

Binary Installation (Debian / Ubuntu)

The ROS repository has binary packages for Ubuntu x86, amd64 (x86_64) and armhf (ARMv7). Kinetic also supports Debian Jessie amd64 and arm64 (ARMv8).

Use apt-get for installation, where ${ROS_DISTRO} below should resolve to kinetic or noetic, depending on your version of ROS:

sudo apt-get install ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mavros ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mavros-extras ros-${ROS_DISTRO}-mavros-msgs

Then install GeographicLib datasets by running the install_geographiclib_datasets.sh script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mavlink/mavros/master/mavros/scripts/install_geographiclib_datasets.sh
sudo bash ./install_geographiclib_datasets.sh   

Source Installation

This installation assumes you have a catkin workspace located at ~/catkin_ws If you don't create one with:

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin init
wstool init src

You will be using the ROS Python tools: wstool (for retrieving sources), rosinstall, and catkin_tools (building) for this installation. While they may have been installed during your installation of ROS you can also install them with:

sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools python-rosinstall-generator -y

:::tip While the package can be built using catkin_make the preferred method is using catkin_tools as it is a more versatile and "friendly" build tool. :::

If this is your first time using wstool you will need to initialize your source space with:

$ wstool init ~/catkin_ws/src

Now you are ready to do the build:

1. Install MAVLink:

   # We use the Kinetic reference for all ROS distros as it's not distro-specific and up to date
   rosinstall_generator --rosdistro kinetic mavlink | tee /tmp/mavros.rosinstall

2. Install MAVROS from source using either released or latest version:

   • Released/stable

     rosinstall_generator --upstream mavros | tee -a /tmp/mavros.rosinstall

   • Latest source

     rosinstall_generator --upstream-development mavros | tee -a /tmp/mavros.rosinstall

     # For fetching all the dependencies into your catkin_ws, 
     # just add '--deps' to the above scripts, E.g.:
     #   rosinstall_generator --upstream mavros --deps | tee -a /tmp/mavros.rosinstall

3. Create workspace & deps

   wstool merge -t src /tmp/mavros.rosinstall
   wstool update -t src -j4
   rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -y

4. Install GeographicLib datasets:

   ./src/mavros/mavros/scripts/install_geographiclib_datasets.sh

5. Build source

   catkin build

6. Make sure that you use setup.bash or setup.zsh from workspace.

   #Needed or rosrun can't find nodes from this workspace.
   source devel/setup.bash

In the case of error, there are addition installation and troubleshooting notes in the mavros repo.

MAVROS Examples

The MAVROS Offboard Example (C++), will show you the basics of MAVROS, from reading telemetry, checking the drone state, changing flight modes and controlling the drone.

:::note If you have an example app using the PX4 Autopilot and MAVROS, we can help you get it on our docs. :::

See Also

• mavros ROS Package Summary

• mavros source

• ROS Melodic installation instructions