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Argus Cameras ROS Package

The argus_camera_ros package provides a custom C++ ROS driver for NVIDIA Jetson platforms, specifically designed for high-performance applications where precise timestamping and low latency are critical. This driver was developed as an alternative to existing solutions that couldn't meet the demanding requirements for real-time robotic systems.

Features

  • Event-Driven Architecture: Each camera is treated as an independent object, minimizing latency and maximizing performance.
  • Precise Timestamping: The driver captures hardware timestamps for each frame, ensuring accuracy.
  • Time Synchronization: The driver supports two primary time synchronization modes:
    • TIME_FROM_ROS (Default): The system uses the ROS time domain. This is the default operational mode and provides reasonable accuracy due to the low-latency driver design.
    • TIME_FROM_PTP (Precision Time Protocol): This mode allows the driver to convert hardware timestamps into the PTP time domain. It is designed to work with a setup where the Jetson is the PTP master.

System Requirements

  • ROS: Humble
  • OS: Jetpack 6.0 (or newer, but has not been tested on versions beyond Jetpack 6.0)
  • Hardware: NVIDIA Jetson platform with a compatible camera.

Getting Started

Building and Installation

Note: This package is designed to be built and run exclusively on NVIDIA Jetson platforms with the specified Jetpack versions.

  1. Clone the repository into your ROS workspace.

    cd <your_ros_workspace>/src
git clone [https://github.com/snt-arg/argus_camera_ros.git](https://github.com/snt-arg/argus_camera_ros.git)

  2. Build the package using colcon.

    cd <your_ros_workspace>
colcon build --packages-select argus_camera_ros

Using PTP Timestamping

To use the TIME_FROM_PTP timestamping mode, you must first ensure that the system's PTP configuration is correct and then enable read/write access to the PTP hardware clock.

  1. Edit the udev rules to grant permissions to the PTP device.

    sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/99-nvpps.rules

  2. Add the following line to the file:

    KERNEL=="nvpps0", MODE="0666"

  3. Apply the new udev rules by running the following commands or by rebooting your system.

    sudo udevadm control --reload
sudo udevadm trigger

With these steps complete, you can now configure the argus_camera_ros package to use the TIME_FROM_PTP timestamping mode.