Complete Guide: Making a hardware interface for MoveIt

Name: Complete Guide: Making a hardware interface for MoveIt
Rating: 4.0 (55 reviews)

Bring a robot arm to life with MoveIt and ROS Control!

Created byStephen Zuccaro

Last updated 5/2022

English

What you'll learn

High-Level Overview of Moveit
MoveIt Setup Assistant
Understanding ROS Control
Create your own Hardware Interface

Course content

3 sections • 14 lectures • 1h 50m total length

Introduction3:53
Using Moveit for the first time can be challenging. This video explains how moveit fits in to the overall robot software architecture, and help you understand the context of the following lectures.
Using the MoveIt Setup Assistant17:40
This video walks you through using the Moveit setup assistant. This setup wizard will use your existing URDF robot model to automatically create a ROS package containing all the needed components for kinematics and path planning. This step also prepares you for using the ROS Controllers discussed in the next lecture.

ROS Control and Hardware Interface Overview5:11
Explore how MoveIt plans trajectories and interfaces with ROS control through a hardware interface, using a Picnic Robotics boilerplate and two functions (read and write) to bridge the data layer.
Hardware Interface Installation and Overview3:38
This lecture begins with Installing the boilerplate hardware interface code that will be customized for your own robot. Then, a code overview explains what the boilerplate contains.
Creating your custom H.W. Interface package3:07
Create your own hardware interface package and create the required template files inside.
Creating the Hardware Interface Class9:14
Create the hardware interface class by copying the boilerplate template. The primary action is renaming so that our custom class makes sense for our robot.
Creating Main and Compiling9:13
We use the boilerplate Main to create our own customized main with just a few modifications. We then go through the process of getting this new package to compile.
Adding Custom Messages for Robot Hardware Control6:26
In this section we add custom messages to our hardware interface that will allow ROS to write commands to the robot as well as read feedback. These messages will be used to communicate with the Arduino style microcontroller connected to the robot.
Creating the Read and Write Functions to the H.w. Interface14:23
In this video we create the all important Read and Write functions of the hardware interface. These use a publisher and subscriber to directly communicate with a microcontroller communicating with the robot.
Configuration and Launch Files10:09
In this video we create the configuration files required to customize the Hardware Interface as well as launch files for starting Moveit and our custom interface.
Setting up RVIZ for MoveIt2:21
RVIZ setup to best display our MoveIt enabled robot.

Hardware Interface Robot Demo1:16
The robot works! This is a short clip showing our progress in action on the real robot.
Buffering for Communication Stability12:04
This video explains a buffering strategy to ensure the robot has enough points to execute in its queue. This is a critical component to achieving consistently smooth motion.
Configuring Velocities for Real Robot Deployment11:26
This is the final step! In this video we analyze and configure velocities to be safe for deployment on the real robot.

Requirements

ROS basics
C++

Description

This course is designed for students with some ROS experience and who are wanting to use ROS to control a robotic arm. This course teaches how to actually use MoveIt - from start to finish- with a real robot arm. This is the most comprehensive course on creating a hardware interface to enable real robots to work seamlessly with MoveIt.

I begin with the basics of the MoveIt Setup Assistant, which is a simple wizard application for describing the physical characteristics of your actual robot to the MoveIt software. I then use a templated approach to creating a custom hardware interface built with ROS Control. This hardware interface provides the direct link between ROS and the real robot by leveraging ROS Control’s ability to transform MoveIt path planning into real-time joint commands.

This course has been developed using a industrial Aubo robot which is directly interfaced to and Arduino type microcontroller. Because of the Arduino interface, this course is directly applicable to any robot - wether it is industrial or DIY - that can be controlled using a series joint commands.

I have created this course because when I was working through the process of using MoveIt with an actual robot, I was surprised that there is almost no documentation that walks you through the entire process. This course is my attempt to fill this need.

Who this course is for:

Robot enthusiast
Robot developer
Robotics Engineer
College Students studying robotics

Complete Guide: Making a hardware interface for MoveIt

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Introduction and Setup2 lectures • 22min

Creating a hardware interface9 lectures • 1hr 4min

Modifying the H.W Interface for the Real Robot3 lectures • 25min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: