matlab_ros_bridge

This page contains the source code of a set of Matlab C++ S-functions that can be used to:

• synchronize simulink with the system clock, thus obtaining a soft-real-time execution;
• interface simulink blocks with other ROS nodes using ROS messages.

This project is based on a work started by Martin Riedel and Riccardo Spica at the Max Plank Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tuebingen (Germany). This fork is currently supported by Riccardo Spica and Giovanni Claudio at the Inria Istitute in Rennes (France).

The software is released under the BSD license. See the LICENSE file in this repository for more information.

Since the compiling procedure is quite involved, please read the entire instructions carefully at least once before attempting to compile.

Configuring Matlab

Before proceeding with the next steps you need to configure Matlab mex compiler.

For Matlab 2014b and older, run matlab and type the following command in the command window:

mex -setup

When you get the following message:

Enter the number of the compiler (0-1):

Enter 1 to select the first option. This should create a mex option file in ~/.matlab/R2014a/mexopts.sh. Open this file and make sure that the correct version of the gnu compiler is used.

For Matlab 2015a and newer, run matlab and type the following commands in the command window

mex -setup
mex -setup C++

This should create two files in ~/.matlab/<matlab_version>/ named mex_C_glnxa64.xml and mex_C++_glnxa64.xml. Open mex_C++_glnxa64.xml and substitute all instances of "g++" and "$GCC" with "g++-4.7" (or 4.4 for older versions of Matlab). Open mex_C_glnxa64.xml and substitute all instances of "gcc" and "$GCC" with "gcc-4.7" (or 4.4 for older versions of Matlab).

Compiling the bridge

The process of compiling the matlab_ros_bridge is not straightforward. The main problem is that MATLAB doesn't use the system distribution of boost but instead comes with its ows shipped version, which can be found in, e.g. 'matlabroot/bin/glnxa64/'. Since the mex files that we generate will run inside matlab it is important that they are linked against the same version of boost that is used in MATLAB. Moreover, since the mex files will also be linked to ROS libraries, we also need to recompile ROS and link it to the same version of boost. Finally we also need to compile everyting (boost, ros and our mex files) using a c/c++ compiler officially supported by the MATLAB distribution that we are using.

Compiling boost

This section will guide you through the process of compiling the required version of boost with the compiler supported by your Matlab version. Before doing this you should try using one of the precompiled boost distributions available in the download section of this repository. Check the version correspondance table below in this page to find the correct download link. If you cannot find a precompiled boost download link for you setup then keep reading, otherwise skip to the following section.

1. Download the correct version of boost from here in a folder of your choice (later referred to as <boost_dir>). To know which version you need you can type, in a matlab command window, the following command:

   ls([matlabroot '/bin/glnxa64/libboost_date_time*'])

2. Open a new terminal and navigate to <boost_dir> and give the following command:

   $ ./bootstrap.sh --prefix=path/to/boost/installation/prefix

3. Edit the file <boost_dir>/project-config.jam with your favourite tool and substitute:

   using gcc;

   with (e.g.)

   using gcc : 4.4 : g++-4.4 : -std=c++0x ;

   The exact version of gcc/g++ that you need to use depends on the matlab release (check it on Matlab website).

4. Build boost by doing:

   $ ./bjam link=shared -j8 install

Note: while building Boost you might encounter this pseudo-bug due to an incompatibility between older versions of Boost and the new C11 standard. To solve this you can either substitute all occurrences of TIME_UTC in all Boost headers with TIME_UTC_ (as done in more recent versions of Boost). For istance, in version 1.49.0, you need to modify <boost_dir>/boost/thread/xtime.hpp and <boost_dir>/libs/thread/src/pthread/timeconv.inl.

In some cases you might be able to solve this issue by modifying <boost_dir>/project-config.jam so as to change

using gcc : 4.4 : g++-4.4 ;

to

using gcc : 4.4 : g++-4.4 : -U_GNU_SOURCE ;

If you are building boost on a x64 system you might also encounter this bug. In this case just apply the proposed fix.

Compiling ROS

5. Follow the instructions for your ROS distribution on http://wiki.ros.org/<distro>/Installation/Source (e.g. for Indigo), to install ROS-Comm in the "wet" version until you need to compile. DO NOT COMPILE NOW (i.e. do not run catkin_make or catkin_make_isolated). To reduce the number of ros packages to compile, you can also initialize your workspace with

   $ rosinstall_generator roscpp geometry_msgs std_msgs sensor_msgs shape_msgs --rosdistro indigo --deps --wet-only --tar > mrb.rosinstall
   $ wstool init -j8 src mrb.rosinstall

To disable unnecessary message generators you can also run export ROS_LANG_DISABLE="genlisp;genpy;geneus;gennodejs". 6. In a terminal navigate to the src directory of the catkin workspace created in the previous step and do:

```bash
$ wstool set matlab_ros_bridge --git https://github.com/lagadic/matlab_ros_bridge.git
$ wstool update matlab_ros_bridge
```

7. Before compiling you might also need to modify the file src/roscpp/src/libros/param.cpp as described here.

8. Compile ros and the bridge with:

   $ src/catkin/bin/catkin_make --cmake-args -DBOOST_ROOT=path/to/boost/installation/prefix -DBoost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS=ON -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc-4.7 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-4.7 -DMATLAB_DIR=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2015b

   note that you might need to change this command according to your <boost_dir>, Matlab path and compiler version. Add install at the end or run catkin_make install if desired. For old versions of ROS (before Indigo) you may need to use the command catkin_make_isolated instead of catkin_make. Note: the incompatibility issue discussed in the previous section might cause rosbag (and possibly other packages) to fail building. If this is the case, either substitute all occurrences of TIME_UTC in all rosbag source files with TIME_UTC_ or add -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=-U_GNU_SOURCE to your catkin_make command above.

9. Make sure you have "sourced" your workspace by running:

   $ source /path/to/your/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

   Navigate to the build directory of the package matlab_ros_bridge. It should be catkin_ws/build/ or catkin_ws/build_isolated/matlab_ros_bridge if you used catkin_make_isolated. Now generate the simulink block library by running:

   $ cmake .
   $ make generate_library

Compiling procedure with ROS kinetic and Matlab 2017a

When using this combination, a special procedure needs to be followed because of some compiling issues that are still being investigated.

1. Follow the above procedure until step 4.

2. Initialize your workspace with

   $ rosinstall_generator roscpp geometry_msgs std_msgs sensor_msgs shape_msgs --rosdistro kinetic --deps --wet-only --tar --exclude rospack geneus genlisp gennodejs genpy > mrb.rosinstall
   $ wstool init -j8 src mrb.rosinstall

3. Clone the console_bridge package and build it using gcc-4.9

   $ git clone [email protected]:ros/console_bridge.git
   $ mkdir console_bridge/build
   $ cd console_bridge/build
   $ cmake -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc-4.9 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-4.9 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-4.9 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-Wl,--rpath=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2017a/sys/os/glnxa64" ..
   $ make install
   

4. Follow steps 6 and 7 of the standard procedure.

5. Compile ros and the bridge with:

   $ src/catkin/bin/catkin_make --cmake-args -DBOOST_ROOT=path/to/boost/installation/prefix -DBoost_NO_SYSTEM_PATHS=ON -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc-4.9 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-4.9 -DMATLAB_DIR=/usr/local/MATLAB/R2017a -DROSCONSOLE_BACKEND=print -DCMAKE_CXX_FLAGS="-Wl,-rpath,/usr/local/MATLAB/R2017a/sys/os/glnxa64" -Dconsole_bridge_DIR=path/to/console_bridge/build

6. Follow step 9 of the standard procedure.

Running MATLAB

10. In your MATLAB Startup File add the following lines:

    run(fullfile('path','to','your','catkin_ws','devel_isolated','matlab_ros_bridge','share','matlab_ros_bridge','setup.m'));

11. To run matlab open a terminal and type the following:

    $ source /path/to/your/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
    $ matlab

Testing that everything works

12. In your matlab command window navigate to the folder /path/to/your/catkin_ws/src/matlab_ros_bridge/matlab_ros_bridge/models and type

    Tsim = 2e-5;

    Now open the model test.slx and try to run it in all different running mode.

Note

It might be possible (but it has never been tested) to avoid compiling boost and try to link ros and the mex files against the boost libraries contained in the MATLAB installation directory.

Matlab boost and cpp version correspondances and download link

Matlab version	gcc supported version	shipped boost vesion	compiled boost download	Matlab compiled version
2012a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.4.x	1.44.0	boost_1_44_0_gcc_4_4.tar.bz2	boost_R2012a_x64.tar.gz
2012b	GNU gcc/g++ 4.4.x	1.44.0	boost_1_44_0_gcc_4_4.tar.bz2	boost_R2012b_x64.tar.gz
2013a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.4.x	1.49.0	boost_1_49_0_gcc_4_4.tar.bz2	boost_R2013a_x64.tar.gz
2013b	GNU gcc/g++ 4.7.x	1.49.0	boost_1_49_0_gcc_4_7.tar.bz2	boost_R2013b_x64.tar.gz
2014a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.7.x	1.49.0	boost_1_49_0_gcc_4_7.tar.bz2	boost_R2014a_x64.tar.gz
2015a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.7.x	1.49.0	boost_1_49_0_gcc_4_7.tar.bz2	boost_R2014a_x64.tar.gz
2015b	GNU gcc/g++ 4.7.x	1.49.0	boost_1_49_0_gcc_4_7.tar.bz2	boost_R2014a_x64.tar.gz
2016a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.7.x	1.56.0	boost_1_56_0_gcc_4_7.tar.bz2	boost_R2016a_x64.tar.gz
2017a	GNU gcc/g++ 4.9.x	1.56.0	N/A	boost_R2017a_x64.tar.gz

Ros/Matlab combinatios that have already been tested:

Ros\Matlab	2013b	2014a	2014b	2015a	2015b	2016a	2017a
Hydro	working	working	never tested	never tested	never tested	never tested	never tested
Indigo	never tested	working	working	working	working	working	never tested
Kinetic	never tested	never tested	never tested	never tested	never tested	never tested	not working