ROS2 Cross Compile Shell Script 🎉

中文

This script is designed for cross-compiling ROS2 source code in a Linux environment. The build system uses a Docker-exported target architecture system environment and CMake toolchain files to cross-compile the ROS2 source code for the specified target architecture. 🚀

The script has been tested and is compatible with Ubuntu 24.04.1, using the ROS image version jazzy.

The images above show the time overhead comparison between rk3566 and 11th Gen Intel i7-11370H when compiling a ROS2 example program into an aarch64 executable. ⏱️

Usage 🎯

1. Set up the Docker cross-compilation environment 🛠️

First, configure the qemu and target architecture system environment inside Docker. Users need to install Docker and resolve any user permission or proxy issues. 🧑‍💻

Run the following command, and Docker will automatically download the qemu environment:

docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all

You can verify if qemu is installed successfully by running the following command:

docker run --rm arm64v8/alpine uname -a

Next, clone this repository to your local machine and build the compilation image:

git clone https://github.com/ChenYuWuAi/ros2_cross_compile.git && \
    cd ros2_cross_compile && \
    ./setup_qemu_environment.sh

After executing this command, a compilation image cpp_pubsub:1.0-arm64 will be built in the directory, and a system root directory ubuntu_arm64 will be exported. 🎉

The ubuntu_arm64 directory is the file system of this image.

Tips 🌟

If the image can't be downloaded, try changing the source or configuring a Docker proxy. If the proxy still doesn’t work, try manually pulling the ros:jazzy image using docker pull ros:jazzy. If that still doesn’t work, you can modify the Dockerfile by changing the FROM field in the first line to another source. 🔄

How to add custom environments for cross-compiling your own package ⚙️

Modify the Dockerfile as needed and then rebuild the image by running ./setup_qemu_environment.sh. 🔧

2. Compile the source code 📝

In the ros2_cross_compile directory, execute the following command:

./cross_compile.sh

The script will begin compiling the ROS2 source code. Once the compilation is complete, an install folder will be generated in the ros2_cross_compile directory, containing the cross-compiled ROS2 source code. 🎯

In this example, we compiled the cpp_pubsub example. The compiled executable can be found in the install folder. To check the architecture of the executable, run the following command:

file install/lib/cpp_pubsub/talker

The output should look like this:

install/lib/cpp_pubsub/talker: ELF 64-bit LSB pie executable, ARM aarch64, version 1 (GNU/Linux), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux-aarch64.so.1, BuildID[sha1]=5a318e5e42e7db5430ea6d3d464d958e7c08f07f, for GNU/Linux 3.7.0, not stripped

To verify that the cross-compiled ROS2 source code can run on the target architecture, copy the install folder to the target system, then execute the following command:

source install/setup.bash && \
    ros2 run cpp_pubsub talker

If it runs successfully, 🎉 the cross-compilation was successful! 🚀