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Network setup
Open the User Bay, and connect to one of the switch network ports with a standard ethernet cable. Now, set your laptop’s ethernet port to a static IP such as 192.168.131.51. For a non-permanent IP setup you can use the command:
sudo ifconfig eth0 192.168.131.51/24
and connect via SSH to Ridgeback,
ssh administrator@192.168.131.1
The default password is clearpath.
To get Ridgeback connected to your local wifi, you must first access the internal computer using a wired connection.
Once connected via wire, execute connmanctl to enter the command line interface for Connman, from which
you can configure Ridgeback to either join an existing network, or supply its own standalone access point. An
example session to connect to an existing network:
connmanctl> enable wifi
connmanctl> scan wifi
connmanctl> services
connmanctl> agent on
connmanctl> connect <WIFI_CONN_ID>
connmanctl> config <WIFI_CONN_ID> --ipv4 manual 192.168.125.2 255.255.255.0 192.168.125.5
connmanctl> config <WIFI_CONN_ID> --nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
After the connect line, connman will prompt you for your network’s passphrase. Once connected, connman
will remember and attempt to reconnect on successive power-ons.
Now that Ridgeback is on the wireless network, you can access it via SSH or as a remote ROS master.
Note that in the default configuration, the background ROS process running on Ridgeback launches with the
robot_upstart package, which is configured to set the ROS_HOSTNAME environment variable to the Ridgeback
PC’s hostname.
Add the following lines to your /etc/hosts file:
__.__.__.__ cpr-ridgeback # The robot’s wireless IP address.
__.__.__.__ CPR-R100-0025 # The same IP. Change R100-0025 with the serial number of your Ridgeback
Then, connecting should be a matter of executing the following two lines in your desktop, or pasting them in the ~/.bashrc file of your PC and of Ridgeback:
export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://cpr-ridgeback:11311 # Your robot’s hostname
export ROS_IP=__.__.__.__ # Your computer’s wireless IP address
Once you believe everything is set up correctly, try running rostopic list, which will verify that your machine can see the robot’s ROS master, and rostopic echo /mcu/status, which will verify that the robot PC can see your machine in order to stream topics to it.
Last but not least, we recommend that you synchronize the clocks of your Ridgeback and the rest of the computers that will use it as a ROS master. In order to do this, follow the steps outlined in Ridgeback_yumi - Time synchronization
This guide is based on the instructions present in the Clearpath Ridgeback user manual.