Installing irobot_create

The driver is available from the Brown University brown-ros-pkg site.

Download, extract, and compile using ROS.
You should work in a user ROS project directory (such as ~/projects/ros), which as been added to $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH.

cd [ROS project directory]
wget http://brown-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/files/irobot_create_2_1.tar.bz2
tar -xjf irobot_create_2_1.tar.bz2
rosmake irobot_create_2_1

Plug iRobot Create through USB, which should show up as /dev/ttyUSB0
Make ensure you have access to /dev/ttyUSB0.

sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB0

To test, start roscore and run irobot_create/driver.py

roscore
rosrun irobot_create_2_1 driver.py

In a separate terminal,

# Examine the service
rosservice type tank | rossrv show
# Publish to the service; make the robot spin
rosservice call tank -- 0 -10 10

The last command will instruct the robot to drive the left wheel at -10 mm/s and the right wheel at 10 mm/s, which causes the robot to spin.