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 22 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 software-properties-common 
sudo add-apt-repository universe 
# add ROS2 GPG key 
sudo apt update && sudo apt install curl -y 
sudo curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ros/rosdistro/master/ros.key -o /usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg 
# Add repository to sources list 
echo "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/ros-archive-keyring.gpg] http://packages.ros.org/ros2/ubuntu $(. /etc/os-release && echo jammy) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros2.list > /dev/null 

Note: If you get a warning that the public key is not available, run sudo apt-key del followed by the key number given in the message. Then, go back to #add ROS2 GPG key and continue the process.

Install development and ROS tools

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

Install ROS2

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install ros-iron-desktop

Install Python Stuff

sudo apt install python3-serial 
sudo apt install python3-pip  
sudo apt install ros-iron-irobot-create-msgs 

Update .bashrc

nano ~/.bashrc and add the following lines

export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_fastrtps_cpp 
source /opt/ros/iron/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 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 python3-gpiozero 
sudo adduser [username] dialout  

Setup configuration files

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

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

nano /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]