Technical Resources relating to the FMS:

Supported Platforms

Hardware Requirements

Before you begin, ensure that your machine fulfills the hardware requirements below:

• A host machine that uses the supported platform above.

• 2 vCPUs or more.

• 4 GB or more.

• Full network connectivity between all the robots that are going to be connected and the FMS (Public or Private network is fine).

• Certain ports to be opened on your machine that will host the FMS, see below.

Required Ports

Please ensure that the ports below are allowed in the host machine to ensure a full working FMS.

Licensing

FMS comes with a trial license that can be activated upon installation. After the trial license ends, you have to purchase a license to continue using the system.

Installation Steps

Before you start installing FMS, it's important to note that the current main method of installing FMS is by using Docker. You'll need to install docker on your own or use our installation script.

1. Download the latest FMS Easy Deploy version and unzip/extract the folder to a preferred directory

FMS Easy Deploy contains the installation scripts and will also act as the working space for the FMS installation.

unzip fms_easy_deploy_vx.y.z.zip -d fms_easy_deploy

1. Install docker on the host machine

You can install docker on your own by following the guide from the official website, or you can also install docker by using our docker installation script from the fms easy deploy directory:

./installs/install_docker.sh

1. Run the installation script

After installing docker, we can proceed with the installation process which mainly involves pulling the official FMS docker images.

./fms/ubuntu/install.sh

1. Start the containers

In order to start FMS, you can use the start script which will load the environment variables and run the containers based on the docker compose file.

./fms/ubuntu/start.sh

You can also use the stop script to stop the docker containers easily.

./fms/ubuntu/stop.sh

Uninstalling FMS

If you want to uninstall FMS which involves removing docker images and volumes. We provide a convenience script:

./fms/ubuntu/uninstall.sh

In order to start integrating your robot into FMS, you'll need to create a Robot Plugin which acts as the communication bridge between your robot and FMS.

It's also important to note that FMS is designed to be software agnostic, meaning that our system and APIs are not tied to a specific robot system. In general, most robot systems should be compatible with our APIs.

A robot plugin can run as a standalone program or it can run alongside as a process in your robot system. As long as it is able to send and receive data from or to the FMS, then it can be classified as a robot plugin.

FMS has built-in support for Seirios RNS, you don't to create an additional robot plugin if you're already using it.

You can check this article on how to enable the FMS Mode from Seirios RNS.

Generally, you will need to do these three steps to create a functional robot plugin:

1. Decide which capabilities you want to integrate from your robot to FMS

FMS is packed with many features and you might find that you don't need all the available features. You can specifically pick features that you want your robot to be able to perform from the perspective of FMS. This concept is called Capabilities and it can help you save time when you are creating your robot plugin.

For example, if your robot is able to perform navigation task by sending a Goal Point but it is not able to Teleoperate manually. You can specify that when you're initializing your plugin and those capabilities will be reflected later in the FMS UI. In this case, the teleoperation joystick will not be shown for the respective robot.

You can read more about Capabilities .

1. Integrate your robot with the FMS Robot API

You can integrate your robot with FMS in two ways:

(a) Use the FMS Robot SDK, currently only supported in Python and soon Node.js.

(b) Manually integrate to the FMS Robot API by interacting with our HTTP and MQTT APIs.

You can read more about the integration process with FMS Robot API .

1. Deploy and run your robot plugin

After you've finished writing your robot plugin, then you can run it either as a binary or as a docker container. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, there are no specific approach on how to deploy the robot plugin.

For best practices on the deployment, you can check the article .

Installation Steps

Before you start installing FMS, it's important to note that the current main method of installing FMS is by using Docker. You'll need to install docker on your own or use our installation script.

1. Download the latest FMS Easy Deploy version and unzip/extract the folder to a preferred directory

FMS Easy Deploy contains the installation scripts and will also act as the working space for the FMS installation.

1. Install docker on the host machine

For windows version, please install the Docker Desktop from the Official Docker Website. Note that this will also require installing WSL2.

1. Run the installation script

After installing docker desktop, you can navigate to the FMS Easy Deploy directory and go to fms_easy_deploy/fms/windows/ which will contain all the necessary batch scripts. You can then just click the install.bat to run the installation batch script which will pull the Official FMS Docker Images.

1. Start the containers

In order to start FMS, you can use the start script (start.bat) which will load the environment variables and run the containers based on the docker compose file.

You can also use the stop script (stop.bat) to stop the docker containers easily.

Uninstalling FMS

If you want to uninstall FMS which involves removing docker images and volumes. We provide a convenience script uninstall.bat

Installation Steps

Before you start installing the RNS Plugin, it's important to note that the current main method of installing RNS Plugin is by using Docker. You'll need to install docker on your own or use our installation script.

1. Download the latest FMS Easy Deploy version and unzip/extract the folder to a preferred directory

FMS Easy Deploy contains the installation scripts and will also act as the working space for the RNS Plugin installation.

unzip fms_easy_deploy_vx.y.z.zip -d fms_easy_deploy

1. Install docker on the host machine

You can install docker on your own by following the guide from the official website, or you can also install docker by using our docker installation script from the fms easy deploy directory:

./installs/install_docker.sh

1. Run the installation script

After installing docker, we can proceed with the installation process which mainly involves pulling the official RNS Plugin docker image.

./rns_plugin/ubuntu/install.sh

1. Start the containers

In order to start the RNS Plugin, you can use the start script which will load the environment variables and run the containers based on the docker compose file.

./rns_plugin/ubuntu/start.sh

You can also use the stop script to stop the docker containers easily.

./rns_plugin/ubuntu/stop.sh

Uninstalling RNS Plugin

If you want to uninstall RNS Plugin which involves removing docker images and volumes. We provide a convenience script:

./rns_plugin/ubuntu/uninstall.sh

Installation Steps

Before you start installing RNS Plugin, it's important to note that the current main method of installing RNS Plugin is by using Docker. You'll need to install docker on your own or use our installation script.

1. Download the latest FMS Easy Deploy version and unzip/extract the folder to a preferred directory

FMS Easy Deploy contains the installation scripts and will also act as the working space for the RNS Plugin installation.

1. Install docker on the host machine

For windows version, please install the Docker Desktop from the Official Docker Website. Note that this will also require installing WSL2.

1. Run the installation script

After installing docker desktop, you can navigate to the FMS Easy Deploy directory and go to fms_easy_deploy/rns_plugin/windows/ which will contain all the necessary batch scripts. You can then just click the install.bat to run the installation batch script which will pull the Official RNS Plugin Docker Image.

1. Start the containers

In order to start the RNS Plugin, you can use the start script (start.bat) which will load the environment variables and run the containers based on the docker compose file.

You can also use the stop script (stop.bat) to stop the docker containers easily.

Uninstalling RNS Plugin

If you want to uninstall RNS Plugin which involves removing docker images and volumes. We provide a convenience script uninstall.bat

Supported Platforms

Hardware Requirements

RNS Plugin doesn't perform any heavy computation as it only acts as an adapter or a communication bridge between FMS and RNS. You can safely run RNS Plugin inside your robot without any significant performance cost.

Required Ports

Please ensure that the ports below are allowed in the robot's machine to ensure that communication with FMS is working properly.

Licensing

RNS Plugin doesn't require a license as it's only an adapter between FMS and RNS.

This manual is intended to give you a complete guide on how to integrate your robot into FMS. You can explore the following guides below:

If you prefer a hands-on approach, we also have a tutorial on integrating the Turtlebot3 Simulation Robot into FMS.