1. Introduction

ROS 2 Documentation: Humble

The Robot Operating System (ROS) is a set of software libraries and tools for building robot applications. From drivers and state-of-the-art algorithms to powerful developer tools, ROS has the open source tools you need for your next robotics project.

2. Installation

2.1 Install ROS2

• Reference: ROS Setup.md
• 

2.2 Configure ROS2 Environment

Configuring environment

ROS 2 development environment needs to be configured before use. This can be done by sourcing setup files in each terminal session or adding the source command to your startup script.

Option 1: Source manually each terminal session

# Replace ".bash" with your shell if not using bash
# Possible values: setup.bash, setup.sh, setup.zsh
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

You need to run this in every new terminal session unless automated.

Option 2 (Recommended): Add sourcing to shell startup script

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

Option 3: Manual editing using nano

sudo apt-get install nano     # Install nano if needed
nano ~/.bashrc                # Open .bashrc
# Add the following line at the end of the file
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
# Save and close (Ctrl+X, then Y, then Enter)

3. Workspaces

3.1 Create an Empty Workspace

Creating a Workspace

A workspace is a directory containing ROS 2 packages. It typically has a src subdirectory where package source code resides. Usually starts empty.

Steps

1. Source main ROS2 installation (underlay)

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

2. Create a training workspace and src folder

mkdir -p training_ws/src
cd training_ws/src

Source an underlay

ROS 2 supports overlaying multiple workspaces. The main installation is the underlay, local workspaces are overlays. Source the underlay first to provide necessary build dependencies.

3.2 Build Workspace Using Colcon

• Reference: Build a workspace using colcon

4. Packages

4.1 Install ROS Packages

Binary packages

Precompiled versions that install directly via a package manager (e.g., apt). Recommended for most users since dependencies and updates are handled automatically.

Building from source

Download and compile the code manually. Recommended if binaries aren’t available, or to access the latest version of ROS.

4.2 Create a Package

• Create a package
• Create a ROS package (C++)

4.3 Create a ROS Node

• Create a Minimal ROS Node (C++)
• Create a publisher and subscriber node (Python)

5. Tutorials / Examples

5.1 Topics and Turtlesim

• Reference: Topics and Turtlesim

5.2 tf2

• Reference: tf2 Tutorial

6. References

• ROS 2 Humble Documentation
• ROS Setup.md
• Build a workspace using colcon
• Create a package
• Create a publisher and subscriber node
• Topics and Turtlesim
• tf2 Tutorial