To set up a Raspberry Pi 4 with an iRobot Create3:

iRobot Create3 setup

• Set up the iCreate3 Application
• Hold both side buttons on the robot to start the hotspot
• Connect to the wifi signal starting with “Create”
• In your browser, go to 192.168.10.1
• Under the update tab, update to the most recent Iron Irwini version (I.0.0 as of this writing).
• Go to Application/Configuration and specify rmw_fastrtps_cpp as the RMW.
• Click Restart Application from the application window, even if it was already set in that way.

Install Ubuntu on the Raspberry Pi

• Go to https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ and download the Raspberry Pi Imager.
• Select Ubuntu 24 from the imager.
• Save it to the microUSB, then boot the Raspberry Pi.
• In the Raspberry Pi terminal, ensure that the output from locale contains “UTF-8”
• Add the ROS2 Repository

Enable Ubuntu Universe repository

sudo apt install -y software-properties-common 
sudo add-apt-repository universe 

Enable ros-apt-source packages

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y curl
export ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION=$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/latest | grep -F "tag_name" | awk -F'"' '{print $4}')
curl -L -o /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb "https://github.com/ros-infrastructure/ros-apt-source/releases/download/${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}/ros2-apt-source_${ROS_APT_SOURCE_VERSION}.$(. /etc/os-release && echo ${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-${VERSION_CODENAME}})_all.deb"
sudo dpkg -i /tmp/ros2-apt-source.deb

Install development and ROS tools

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y ros-dev-tools 

Install ROS2 Jazzy

• We are using Jazzy because Iron (running on the robots) is no longer supported.
• Jazzy, running on a Raspberry Pi, is compatible with Iron running on the iRobot Create3.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y ros-jazzy-ros-base

Install Python Stuff

sudo apt install -y python3-serial 
sudo apt install -y python3-pip  
sudo apt install -y ros-jazzy-irobot-create-msgs 

Install micro

sudo apt install -y micro

Update .bashrc

micro ~/.bashrc and add the following lines

export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp 
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash 

Note: You can add any other needed directories to PYTHONPATH using colons to separate each directory

Enable SSH

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install -y openssh-server 
sudo systemctl enable ssh 
sudo systemctl start ssh 

Type hostname -I to find the IP address. Then, you can connect using ssh username@ip address from another computer.

Setup GPIO pins

sudo apt update 
sudo apt install -y python3-gpiozero 
sudo adduser [username] dialout  

Setup configuration files

sudo micro /boot/firmware/config.txt and add dtoverlay=dwc2,dr_mode=peripheral after the line arm_64bit=1.

sudo micro /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt and add modules-load=dwc2,g_ether after rootwait

sudo micro /etc/netplan/01-network-manager-all.yaml and add

network: 
  version: 2 
  renderer: NetworkManager 
  ethernets: 
    usb0: 
      dhcp4: false 
      optional: true 
      addresses: [192.168.186.3/24]