Problem with Connecting UR3 with ROS

[MDario1997]

Affected ROS Driver version(s)

Noetic with ubuntu 20.04

Used ROS distribution.

Noetic

Which combination of platform is the ROS driver running on.

Linux in a virtual machine

How is the UR ROS Driver installed.

Build both the ROS driver and UR Client Library from source

Which robot platform is the driver connected to.

UR CB3 robot

Robot SW / URSim version(s)

UR software 3.13.1.10297

How is the ROS driver used.

Through the robot teach pendant using External Control URCap

Issue details

Summary

I am trying to connect the UR3 robot to ROS with the URcap program

Issue details

I have the UR3 robot on top of a MIR (mobile robot), the UR is connected to the MIR connection, as the computer, because the aim is to connect both to ROS, so i did set all the IP's and after disabling the ufw i launched : 'roslaunch ur_robot_driver ur3_bringup.launch robot_ip:=192.168.12.2 kinematics_config:=$(rospack find ur_calibration)/ur3_robot_calibration.yaml' . After doing this, i launched the URcap program on the teach pendant and i have this problem printed on the terminal:

i don't know if the problem is that the MIR connection is not like ' a classic Wi-Fi' connection, but if i ping both the UR and the MIR on ROS i can see them.

Expected Behavior

i did expect to just read on the terminal
[ INFO] [1721124400.383903627]: Robot connected to reverse interface. Ready to receive control commands.
waiting then for my commands

Relevant log output

No response

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[VinDp]

Hi @MDario1997,
can you give us more details about your network setup? From what you wrote it seems like you are trying to use Wi-Fi instead of cable connection, is that so? Because we do not recommend to use the driver over a wireless connection.

[MDario1997]

I have an UR3 attached on a moving robot (MIR100), the MIR100 has his own wi-fi, and i connected the UR3 to the MIR (via ethernet) and the host computer to the MIR (via wi-fi, because the robot has to move around the laboratory):

So with this setup i have the UR3 directly connected to the MIR network via cable, and the computer is connected to the network throu Wi-fi, and if i ping, from ROS, the UR3 IP it works

[fmauch]

As @VinDp wrote: A WiFi connection isn't sufficient to run the driver. You'll need to have a PC on the robot connected through a cable to the robot in order to run the driver.

[MDario1997]

Good morning, i tried the setup connecting everything via cable:

the IP's are: UR3:192.168.12.2, MIR:192.168.12.20,Host PC (selected manually as the tutorial says): 192.168.12.192 .
when i run the command 'roslaunch ur_robot_driver ur3_bringup.launch robot_ip:=192.168.12.2 kinematics_config:=$(rospack find ur_calibration)/ur3_robot_calibration.yaml' , after running the external control program on the teach pensant, i have the same problem as before:

Edit: are you able to see the picture posted?

[fmauch]

Edit: are you able to see the picture posted?

yes

What does the log on the teach pendant say? Could you -- for debugging this -- unplug the MIR from the switch to make sure there's not tons of network traffic blocking things from coming through. I don't necessarily expect that, but just to rule out that option.

[MDario1997]

Good morning,
I solved this initial problem, it was caused by an ethernet port that wasn't functioning properly.
Now if i connect directly the computer to the UR everything works fine, but if i try to create the network between MIR-UR3-PC as shown in the picture before, it works initially, but after some time (5/10 minutes) i lose the connection and i can't send more commands without relaunching the driver:

I also tried to modify the 'hardwareinterface.ccp' file adding se 'setkeepalivecount(5)' command, but it still an unstable connection. Do you think that is a solvable problem or the fact that another device is connected to the network makes the system always unstable?