Control Ned/Ned2 with MoveIt and ROS Multi-Machines

V.1.1

Niryo Moveit! multimachines banner

Difficulty: easy

Time: ~10 min

Note

This tutorial is working from:
The version v3.2.0 of the ned_ros_stack

This tutorial explains how to control Ned/Ned2 with Rviz through the MoveIt plugin, in Multi-machines.

Before going further, please refer to our Multi-machines, and our Connect to Ned via SSH tutorials. You can also refer to the ROS Multi-machines tutorial: Running ROS across multiple machines.

What you will need

  • A Ned (or a Ned2),

  • A computer with Ubuntu (we used Ubuntu 18.04),

  • To have Rviz installed on your computer,

  • To have the niryo_robot_bringup ROS package on your computer, a part of the Ned/Ned2 ROS Stack that you can download here.

Setup

In each terminal you’ll use, you have to setup the ROS_MASTER_URI and ROS_IP environment variables. The master is hosted on Ned/Ned2.

Hint

We recommend to use an ethernet connection between your computer and Ned to optimize the communication speed.

On Ned/Ned2

First, in a terminal, connect to Ned/Ned2 in SSH, with the command line:

ssh niryo@<ned_static_ip_address>

We use the hardware_interface_standalone.launch file, which only launches on Ned/Ned2:

  • The Hardware Stack (which publishes on the /joint_state topic), with the motor’s drivers,

  • The controllers,

  • The robot description (loads the urdf file of the robot),

  • The robot state publisher.

Launch it on Ned/Ned2 with:

roslaunch niryo_robot_hardware_interface hardware_interface_standalone.launch

On your computer

We use the moveit_multimachines.launch file, which launches:

  • The command validation group (which checks that commands are not out of bounds)

  • The Moveit! move group interface

This file is in the niryo_robot_bringup package on the Ned/Ned2 ROS Stack. Launch it with:

roslaunch niryo_robot_bringup moveit_multimachines.launch

Finally, in a third terminal, launch Rviz with:

rosrun rviz rviz

Control Ned/Ned2 through Rviz

After opening Rviz, make sure that the “fixed frame” is set to “world”. Add the MotionPlanning to the visualization. You should now have:

../../_images/rviz_visualization.png

Ned in Rviz

Important

In order to make Ned/Ned2 move, you’ll have to:

  • Make sure Ned/Ned2 is well calibrated with:

    rosservice call /niryo_robot/joints_interface/calibrate_motors "value: 1"

  • Deactivate the Learning Mode with:

    rosservice call /niryo_robot/learning_mode/activate "value: false"

You should now be able to move the goal position and orientation of the end effector thanks to the differents arrows:

../../_images/new_goal.png

Define a new goal

Once the goal position is defined, click Plan and Execute so Moveit! calculate the path to the goal and execute it. You are now able to visualize Ned/Ned2’s current state in Rviz, and to control its movements through Rviz.

../../_images/plan_and_execute.png

Plan and execute path

You can also play with the many options provided by MotionPlanning, like making Ned/Ned2 move along a Cartesian path!