Lab04 Robot Control Demonstration

Start up the robot simulator

Launch URSim

Ensure the program has just the external control with the IP address set to 10.0.2.15

NB: if you have overwritten the program, you can find the external control under URCaps

Start up the communication between ROS and URSim

Open a terminal with ctrl+alt+t

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ur_robot_driver ur5e_bringup.launch robot_ip:=10.0.2.15

Once the terminal has finished printing the startup output, play the program on URSim.

The terminal should output logging information saying the robot is ready to recieve commands

[ INFO] [1624490993.175980451]: Robot requested program
[ INFO] [1624490993.176238507]: Sent program to robot
[ INFO] [1624490993.243437722]: Robot ready to receive control commands.

Start up the Path Planning node

Open a new terminal tab with ctrl+shift+t

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ur5e_moveit_config ur5e_moveit_planning_execution.launch

Start up the GUI for moving the robot

Open a new terminal tab with ctrl+shift+t

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ur5e_moveit_config moveit_rviz.launch rviz_config:=$(rospack find ur5e_moveit_config)/launch/moveit.rviz

Make the robot move

Click and hold the TCP of the robot and drag it to a new location.

Select Plan from the MotionPlanning Commands section of the GUI.

If the robot was able to plan a path, the execute button will be clickable.

Select Execute from the MotionPlanning Commands section of the GUI.

Watch the UR5e perform the motion in URSim as the robot performs the motion in the RViz window.

Lab Task

Demo solution

There is a lab04 example solution on the new VM under ~/lab_demo_repos/lab04_demo which is linked into the ~/lab_worspaces/lab04_ws/src/.

Checkout the demo solution lab04_example

source ~/lab_workspaces/lab04_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch lab04_example demo.launch

If you would still like to attempt the task, you can run the commands below. This will add you package along side the demo package in the lab04_ws. If you would like to keep them separate, you can mv the existing lab04_ws somewhere else, or name your workspace differently.

Setup

For setting up for the lab task:

cd # Ensure we are in the home directory
mkdir -p ~/lab04_repo/ # Create directory for repository
mkdir -p ~/lab_workspaces/lab04_ws/src # Create directory for ROS workspace and its source subdirectory 
cd lab_workspaces/lab04_ws # Change into Lab04 ROS Workspace
catkin_make # Initialise Workspace
source devel/setup.bash # Tell ROS what our workspace looks like
cd src && catkin_create_pkg lab04_twist_controller std_msgs rospy roscpp geometry_msgs # Create ROS package
mv lab04_twist_controller ~/lab04_repo/ # Move the package into our repository for tracking
ln -s ~/lab04_repo/lab04_twist_controller . # Symbolically link the package from our repo into our ROS workspace so that the workspace can still see it
cd .. && catkin_make # Move into the root of the ROS workspace and compile and build the workspace
cd ~/lab04_repo && git init && git add . # Move into repository, initialise repo and add package to repo
git commit -am "Setup lab04 repo with empty package" # Commit the added files to the repository for tracking. If it is the first time committing on the VM you will need configure git (read the error message)

Make a private repository on Github and follow the instructions to add an existing repo to GitHub.

If you want to avoid using your username and password everytime ou push and pull, follow GitHubs guide on setting up SSH keys https://docs.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/connecting-to-github-with-ssh and ensure you use the ssh url not the https url for linking the repo on the vm to your remote GitHub repo.

After that, you're all set up! You can start programming your ROS nodes!