TEACH PENDANT AND SAWYER SIMULATOR OVERVIEW

Video: Remote Control Sawyer Sim from a Windows Client Tablet

SAWYER SIMULATOR SETUP STEPS TO TEST

Latest Update: Sun 14 June 2020

Author: Burak Aksoy

STEPS FOR A FRESHLY INSTALLED UBUNTU 18.04 or UBUNTU 20.04

NOTE:

A question: Can I use Ubuntu Xenial(16.04) and ROS kinetic, (or previous Ubuntu and ROS versions)?

Answer: The teach pendant will be targeting a minimum Python version of 3.6. Version 3.6 added some important features like type hints. Unfortunately Ubuntu Xenial uses Python 3.5, so we will need to use a minimum of Ubuntu Bionic.

A. INSTALL ROBOT RACONTEUR (RR)

1. Follow steps under title Ubuntu Xenial and Bionic at the GitHub page of RR: https://github.com/robotraconteur/robotraconteur/wiki/Download In summary of installation of RR for C++ and Python:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:robotraconteur/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install robotraconteur-dev
sudo apt-get install python-robotraconteur
sudo apt-get install python3-robotraconteur

B. INSTALL ROS MELODIC (or Neotic for Ubuntu 20.04)

1. Follow the steps at ROS web page: http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation/Ubuntu

2. Additionally install effort controllers with command:

sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-effort-controllers

C. INSTALL .NET Core 3.1

1. Follow the steps at: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/install/linux-package-manager-ubuntu-1804

Note: Or you can use the tar method: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/thank-you/sdk-3.1.404-linux-x64-binaries

D. INSTALL AND START THE SAWYER SIMULATOR

1. The summary of the commands are below:

mkdir -p ~/ros_ws/src
cd ~/ros_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/RethinkRobotics-opensource/sns_ik.git
git clone https://github.com/RethinkRobotics/sawyer_simulator.git
cd ~/ros_ws/src
wstool init .
wstool merge sawyer_simulator/sawyer_simulator.rosinstall
wstool update

source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash
cd ~/ros_ws
catkin_make

Trouble shooting If you see and error like

/home/burak/ros_ws/src/sawyer_simulator/sawyer_gazebo/src/head_interface.cpp:71:44: error: ‘CV_LOAD_IMAGE_UNCHANGED’ was not declared in this scope
   71 |       cv_ptr->image = cv::imread(img_path, CV_LOAD_IMAGE_UNCHANGED); 

Change that line to:

cv_ptr->image = cv::imread(img_path, cv::IMREAD_UNCHANGED);

For reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28534070/cv-load-image-unchanged-undeclared-identifier

Note: Source for the commands above can be found under title Sawyer Simulator Installation at: https://sdk.rethinkrobotics.com/intera/Gazebo_Tutorial It says it is for Kinetic, but it has worked fine on Melodic Also, the Github page: https://github.com/RethinkRobotics/sawyer_simulator

2. Run the gazebo simulation:

source ~/ros_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch sawyer_gazebo sawyer_world.launch 

Note: No need to execute $./intera.sh sim before this command as suggested in the website above since everything is in localhost.

Note: If you see a REST error at roslaunch (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftDz_EVoatw)

cd ~/.ignition/fuel
gedit config.yaml

Edit lines:

    # url: https://api.ignitionfuel.org
    url: https://api.ignitionrobotics.org 

and save.

Note: You can check the status of the robot in Gazebo simulation with ROS command $ rostopic echo /robot/state.

Note: To remove the effects of gravity, you can edit the gravity to 0.0 in line 17 of ~/ros_ws/src/sawyer_simulator/sawyer_gazebo/worlds/sawyer.world

Note: One of the links are invisible in the simulation. To solve,

cd ~/ros_ws/src/sawyer_robot/sawyer_description/meshes

Replace l5.dae file in sawyer_pv with the one from sawyer_ft

E. SET UP AND RUN SAWYER SIMULATION WITH RR DRIVER

Note: Before applying steps below, it is suggested to run the gazebo simulation first.

1. Dowload Sawyer_bin_local and ros_csharp_interop folders into your eg. ~/Desktop. (ASK* Are these explanations below correct?)

• Sawyer_bin_local folder is just for RR drivers implemented in C#. (Honglu shared the compiled version with some example python clients at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=199ZZrz64U1TeDs6prCTF4t8-HZsIKMez) (ASK* Honglu Says this is just a compiled version of https://github.com/johnwason/SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver)
• Ros_csharp_interop-master allows to read std ROS msgs using RR. (https://github.com/johnwason/ros_csharp_interop)

2. Make ros_csharp_ws directory at your home folder:

mkdir ros_csharp_ws
cd ros_csharp_ws/
mkdir src

3. Copy ros_csharp_interop folder into src:

cp -r ~/Desktop/ros_csharp_interop ./src/

4. Built the packages:

cd ros_csharp_ws/
catkin_make_isolated

Note: If you see a SWIG error while catkin_make (go to: http://swig.org/svn.html or https://github.com/swig/swig): go to home directory

cd ~/
git clone https://github.com/swig/swig.git
cd ./swig
./autogen.sh
./configure
make

If another error happens saying yacc: command not found:

sudo apt-get install byacc -y
make
sudo make install

Check the installation of SWIG:

swig -version

OUTPUT should be smth like:

"SWIG Version 4.0.2

Compiled with g++ [x86_64-pc-linux-gnu]

Configured options: +pcre

Please see http://www.swig.org for reporting bugs and further information"

Again:

cd ~/ros_csharp_ws/
catkin_make_isolated

5. Dont forget to source:

source ~/ros_csharp_ws/devel_isolated/setup.bash

6. Change your directory to Sawyer_bin_local that you downloaded

cd ~/Desktop/Sawyer_bin_local/

7. Initialize the Sawyer service (The service definition can be checked from: https://github.com/johnwason/robotraconteur_standard_robdef/blob/master/group1/com.robotraconteur.robotics.robot.robdef )

dotnet SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver.dll --robot-info-file=sawyer_robot_default_config.yml

Note: If you see an error as follows

Unhandled exception. System.IO.IOException: Error in identifier settings file
  at RobotRaconteur.Companion.InfoParser.LocalIdentifiersManager.GetIdentifierForNameAndLock(String category, String name) in C:\Users\wasonj\Documents\RobotRaconteur2\RobotRaconteurNET.Companion\InfoParser\LocalIdentifierManager.cs:line 244
  at RobotRaconteur.Companion.InfoParser.RobotInfoParser.LoadRobotInfoYamlWithIdentifierLocks(YamlRobotInfo yaml_robot_info) in C:\Users\wasonj\Documents\RobotRaconteur2\RobotRaconteurNET.Companion\InfoParser\RobotInfoParser.cs:line 298
  at RobotRaconteur.Companion.InfoParser.RobotInfoParser.LoadRobotInfoYamlWithIdentifierLocks(String filename) in C:\Users\wasonj\Documents\RobotRaconteur2\RobotRaconteurNET.Companion\InfoParser\RobotInfoParser.cs:line 275
  at SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver.Program.Main(String[] args) in C:\Users\wasonj\Documents\RobotRaconteur2\drivers\SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver\Program.cs:line 73
Aborted (core dumped)

It is about RR is not able to load the native dll. For solution run the following command:

sudo apt install librobotraconteur-net-native

Note: STEPS 5-7 can be combined in a file eg. "commands" and can be executed with

./commands

for time saving because each time we need to use Sawyer RR service we need to execute these commands.

For eg. I have a bash script file like this:

source ~/ros_csharp_ws/devel_isolated/setup.bash
cd ~/Sawyer_bin_local/
dotnet SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver.dll --robot-info-file=sawyer_robot_default_config.yml

or create a file with the following lines:

sleep 1s; 
gnome-terminal --tab --title="Gazebo Sawyer Sim" --command "bash -c \"roslaunch sawyer_gazebo sawyer_world.launch;exec bash\""; 
gnome-terminal --tab --title="RR Sawyer service" --command "bash -c \"source ~/ros_csharp_ws/devel_isolated/setup.bash; cd ~/Sawyer_bin_local/; dotnet SawyerRobotRaconteurDriver.dll --robot-info-file=sawyer_robot_default_config.yml; exec bash\" ";

Furhter possible ways can be seen: https://www.tothenew.com/blog/bash-script-to-open-a-terminal-with-multiple-tabs-on-linux-start-up/

8. Test the simulation and run test clients and see the effects on Gazebo::

cd ~/Desktop/Sawyer_bin_local/

python test_sawyer_driver.py
python3 test_sawyer_driver2.py
python3 test_sawyer_driver3.py

Note: (ASK is this correct?) Note: When you test you see some numbers. Those numbers are the summation of the RobotStateFlags defined in https://github.com/johnwason/robotraconteur_standard_robdef/blob/master/group1/com.robotraconteur.robotics.robot.robdef*

Note: There is also a way to install the Sawyer simulator on Windows. It somewhat works, but isn't all that reliable.

http://wiki.ros.org/Installation/Windows as stated by John Wason.

Note: If you have an external python package like "general_robotics_toolbox", add it to my_source.zip

F. CONTROL SAWYER SIMULATION WITH TEACH PENDANT BROWSER INTERFACE

Now, the simulation is running, the RR service to control the robot is runnnig, let's control the robot from the Web Browser UI. Use Mozilla Firefox Web Browser

1. Setup Mozilla Firefox:

• Inside Firefox, type in about:config to the adress bar
• Modify network.websocket.allowInsecureFromHTTPS to be true,
• and privacy.file_unique_origin to be false.

Note: There's memory leak, after a while (e.g. many refreshes on the page) Firefox will be out of memory.

2. Now run RR-Client-WebBrowser.html with Firefox.

• That's it!
• You can check the console details using (Ctrl + Shift + K) combination keyboard shortcut.