Installation

This guide covers installation of ros2_medkit on Ubuntu 24.04 with ROS 2 Jazzy.

System Requirements

Requirement

Version

Operating System

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat)

ROS 2 Distribution

Jazzy

C++ Compiler

GCC 13+ (C++17 support required)

CMake

3.22+

Python

3.12+

Prerequisites

ROS 2 Jazzy must be installed and sourced. Follow the official installation guide: https://docs.ros.org/en/jazzy/Installation/Ubuntu-Install-Debs.html

Installation from Source

ros2_medkit is currently distributed as source code. Binary packages will be available in future releases.

  1. Create a workspace

    mkdir -p ~/ros2_medkit_ws/src
cd ~/ros2_medkit_ws/src

  2. Clone the repository

    Clone directly into the src directory:

    git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/selfpatch/ros2_medkit.git .

    This places packages (ros2_medkit_gateway, ros2_medkit_fault_manager, etc.) directly under ~/ros2_medkit_ws/src/.

    If you already cloned without submodules, initialize them:

    cd ~/ros2_medkit_ws/src
git submodule update --init --recursive

  3. Install dependencies

    cd ~/ros2_medkit_ws
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y

  4. Build the workspace

    cd ~/ros2_medkit_ws
colcon build --symlink-install

  5. Source the workspace

    source install/setup.bash

    Add this to your ~/.bashrc for persistence:

    echo "source ~/ros2_medkit_ws/install/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc

Verifying Installation

After installation, verify that everything works:

# Check that the gateway node is available
ros2 pkg list | grep ros2_medkit

# Launch the gateway
ros2 launch ros2_medkit_gateway gateway.launch.py &

# Test the API
curl http://localhost:8080/api/v1/health

# Stop the gateway
pkill -f gateway_node

You should see output like:

{"status": "healthy", "timestamp": "..."}

Docker Installation

For containerized deployments, see the selfpatch_demos repository which includes Docker Compose examples with Nav2 and TurtleBot3.

See the Docker Deployment for detailed Docker usage instructions.

Development Installation

For development with code coverage and debug symbols:

cd ~/ros2_medkit_ws
colcon build --symlink-install \
  --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -DENABLE_COVERAGE=ON

Troubleshooting

rosdep fails to find packages

Make sure rosdep is initialized and updated:

sudo rosdep init  # Only needed once
rosdep update

Build fails with C++17 errors

Ensure you have GCC 13 or newer:

gcc --version  # Should show 13.x or higher

Cannot find ros2_medkit packages after build

Make sure you source the workspace:

source ~/ros2_medkit_ws/install/setup.bash

Next Steps