Inspired by NVIDIA dw_ros & leo-drive drivers.

Nvidia Drive GMSL Camera ROS Driver

• In this documentation and in the source 'interface' designates the HFM connector, and 'link' the number of the FAKRA Z. See here .
• In this documentation host relates to the Ubuntu 18.04 computer used to build the driver. Target refers to the Nvidia Drive system.

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• Compatible with Driveworks 3.5.
• Compatible with ROS Melodic.
• Tested with Sekonix GMSL SF3324 and SF3325 cameras.

How to build

Prerequisites on the Host

• Ubuntu 18.04.
• Nvidia GPU drivers:

  sudo apt install nvidia-driver-470

• NVIDIA DRIVE™ OS 5.2.0 and DriveWorks 3.5 (Linux):
  • Follow the download page to install NVIDIA DRIVE™ OS 5.2.0 and DriveWorks 3.5 (Linux). Follow the 'DriveWorks 3.5 Installation Guide'.

How to crosscompile on the Host

It is not possible to build directly on the target, we must crosscompile the driver on the host.

Prepare system

Export env variables pointing to the PDK and to the built image SYSROOT (These paths might change on your system):

PDK=$HOME/nvidia/nvidia_sdk/DRIVE_OS_5.2.0_SDK_Linux_OS_DRIVE_AGX_XAVIER/DRIVEOS/drive-t186ref-linux
SYSROOT=$PDK/targetfs

Prepare the cross-compilation sysroot

cd $SYSROOT

sudo apt install qemu-user-static
sudo cp /usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static usr/bin
sudo cp -b /etc/resolv.conf etc
sudo mount -o bind /dev dev
sudo mount -o bind /proc proc
sudo mount -o bind /sys sys

sudo LC_ALL=C chroot .
# apt update
# apt install libboost-all-dev libtinyxml-dev libtinyxml2-dev liblz4-dev libbz2-dev libapr1 libaprutil1 libconsole-bridge-dev libpoco-dev libgpgme-dev python-defusedxml python-rospkg python-catkin-pkg python-netifaces liblog4cxx-dev libopenblas-dev libgflags-dev libglew-dev libopencv-dev
# exit

sudo umount sys proc dev 
sudo rm usr/bin/qemu-aarch64-static
sudo mv etc/resolv.conf~ etc/resolv.conf
sudo rm -rf var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo rm -rf dev/*
sudo rm -rf var/log/*
sudo rm -rf var/tmp/*
sudo rm -rf var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
sudo rm -rf tmp/*

Fix broken symlinks

The broken symlinks can be fixed temporarily with overlays, using commands similar to the following:

sudo mkdir /lib/aarch64-linux-gnu
sudo mkdir /tmp/ros-cc-overlayfs
sudo mount -t overlay -o lowerdir=$SYSROOT/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu,upperdir=/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu,workdir=/tmp/ros-cc-overlayfs overlay /lib/aarch64-linux-gnu

ROS Prerequisites

• Follow this page to set up your sources.list and set up your keys.
• Follow this page to install bootstrap dependencies and initialize rosdep.
• Run below commands to download source of ROS Melodic Morenia (Ubuntu 18.04 is the target root file system of DRIVE OS Linux 5.2.0).

  mkdir -p ~/ros_catkin_ws/src && cd ~/ros_catkin_ws
  rosinstall_generator ros_comm sensor_msgs camera_info_manager cv_bridge image_transport nodelet roscpp std_msgs --rosdistro melodic --deps --tar > melodic-ros_comm.rosinstall
  vcs import src < melodic-ros_comm.rosinstall
  

Clone the driver in the src directory

git clone https://github.com/UT-ADL/nvidia_gmsl_driver_ros.git src/nvidia_gmsl_driver_ros

Install ROS dependencies

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

Extract ROS dependencies

rosdep install -si --reinstall --from-path src

Install the displayed dependencies on the emulated sysroot with apt install.

Build dependencies

sudo apt install python-numpy libyaml-cpp-dev python-empy

Crossbuild the ROS workspace

src/catkin/bin/catkin_make_isolated \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DVIBRANTE_PDK:STRING=$PDK \
  -DTRT_VERSION:STRING=6.3.1.3 \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE="$HOME/ros_catkin_ws/src/nvidia_gmsl_driver_ros/Toolchain-V5L.cmake" \
  -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS="${CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS} -L/usr/local/driveworks/targets/aarch64-Linux/lib -Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/driveworks/targets/aarch64-Linux/lib -L$SYSROOT/usr/local/cuda-10.2/targets/aarch64-linux/lib -Wl,-rpath,$SYSROOT/usr/local/cuda-10.2/targets/aarch64-linux/lib -L$SYSROOT/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/openblas -Wl,-rpath,$SYSROOT/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/openblas" \
  --install

Replace with the current installation path with the binary installation path, so we can run any binary installed packages on the target.

sed -i "s#$HOME/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated#/opt/ros/melodic#g" install_isolated/_setup_util.py

How to run on target

Install ROS dependencies and ROS

Follow http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation/Ubuntu to install ROS necessary apt packages via below command

sudo apt install ros-melodic-ros-base ros-melodic-image-view

Install the same dependencies as we have installed on the emulated sysroot :

apt install libboost-all-dev libtinyxml-dev libtinyxml2-dev liblz4-dev libbz2-dev libapr1 libaprutil1 libconsole-bridge-dev libpoco-dev libgpgme-dev python-defusedxml python-rospkg python-catkin-pkg python-netifaces liblog4cxx-dev libopenblas-dev libgflags-dev libglew-dev libopencv-dev

Transfer the compiled workspace from the host to the target.

Install the dependancies with rosdep :

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

Remove old library versions

(The detailed reason is detailed in this post).

rm /usr/lib/libxerces-c*

Set up ROS environment

source ~/install_isolated/setup.bash

How to use

Setup

In case you need to make changes to ports.yaml :

• Copy the config file ports.yaml to your workspace.
• Edit the config file ports.yaml to your need.
• Pass its path to the launchfile into the config_path param .

Calibrating the cameras

This driver doesn't use the native nvidia RIG calibration file. It uses the ROS ones.
To calibrate the cameras :

• Run the driver with an empty calibration dir.
• Use ROS camera_calibration to calibrate the cameras.
• Put the camera calibration yaml files in your calib dir. Pass its path to the launchfile into the calib_dir_path param .

Note : In the calibration dir the calibration files MUST have this syntax : interface<a-d>_link<0-3>.yaml. For example : interfacea_link1.yaml.

Run the launchfile

roslaunch nvidia_gmsl_driver_ros nvidia_gmsl_driver_ros.launch

Launchfile parameters

Parameter	Default	Comment
config_path	$(dirname)/../config/ports.yaml	Path to the config file.
calib_dir_path	$(dirname)/../calib/	Path to the camera calibration directory.
framerate	30	Output framerate.
verbose	False	Enables verbose output.
encoder	jpg	Encoder. Possible values: {jpg, h264, h265, vp9}
bitrate	8000000	Output bitrate (Minimum 30000). Only for encoder in {h264, h265, vp9}.
output_width	1920	Output width.
output_height	1208	Output height.

Useful links

• DriveWorks SDK Reference Documentation