Introduction: How to Install ROS Kinetic on Raspberry Pi 3

By Into Robotics
About: I write about autonomous, outdoor and Internet connected robots. Also, I build some of them.

The OS version used by me on Raspberry Pi 3 is Ubuntu MATE 16.04.2.

The ROS version that I have installed is Kinetic Kame. Kinetic was released early last year and is compatible with Ubuntu Mate 16.04. I chose this version for two reasons:

  1. it will be officially supported for the next five years;
  2. it is the most complete version after Indigo;

The first step in installing ROS on Raspberry Pi 3 is called Mate. Ubuntu Mate. The operating system is simple to install. I followed the steps on the download page, and within minutes I managed to have a Pi 3 running Ubuntu Mate.

What you find below are the steps to install ROS Kinetic on the Raspberry Pi 3.

Step 1: Go to System -> Administration -> Software & Updates;

Step 2: Check the checkboxes to repositories to allow “restricted,” “universe,” and “multiverse.”

Step 3: Setup your sources.list

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'

Step 4: Setup your keys

wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Step 5: To be sure that your Ubuntu Mate package index is up to date, type the following command

sudo apt-get update

Step 6: Install ros-kinetic-desktop-full

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-desktop-full

Step 7: Initialize rosdep

sudo rosdep init

rosdep update

Step 8: Setting up the ROS environment variables

echo "source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

Step 9: Create and initialize the catkin workspace

mkdir -p ~/catkin_workspace/src

cd catkin_workspace/src

catkin_init_workspace

cd ~/catkin_workspace/

catkin_make

Step 10: Add the catkin_workspace to your ROS environment

source ~/catkin_workspace/devel/setup.bash

echo “source ~/catkin_workspace/devel/setup.bash” >> ~/.bashrc

Step 11: Check the ROS environment variables

export | grep ROS

Step 1: Check the ROS Installation

  1. Open a new terminal and type: roscore
  2. Open a new terminal and type: rosrun turtlesim turtlesim_node