Quickstart

Quick-start - Installation and running an example

System requirements

• Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04
• a compiler with C++14 support, e.g. gcc or clang

Installing dependencies and building the library

• install ROS, please follow the steps in this tutorial for your Linux distribution.

• install Eigen 3 via
  sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libeigen3-dev

• install boost
  sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev

• install a build system of your choice, e.g. catkin_tools
  sudo sh -c 'echo deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu lsb_release -scmain > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools

• create a catkin workspace and initialize it
  mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin init

• clone the kindr library
  cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/ANYbotics/kindr.git

• finally, clone the control toolbox and build your workspace
  cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/ethz-adrl/control-toolbox.git
catkin build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Run an example

• if you would like to run an example, build the library with
  cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_EXAMPLES=true

• Now, try to run the examples, e.g. the optimal control and optimal filtering examples:
  cd ~/catkin_ws
source devel/setup.bash
rosrun ct_optcon ex_NLOC
  which will print some iteration output and finally display the following
  
  These are trajectories for driving a simple mass-spring-damper system to a goal config, optimized using the iLQR algorithm.

  If you are intersted in state estimation, run rosrun ct_optcon ex_KalmanFiltering As a result, you should see this:
  
  The plot shows state estimates for a simple mass-spring damper system, where given trajectories are disturbed with white noise.

For more detailed examples, visit the getting started section of the documentation.