Distro	CI Status
Noetic
Humble

Gazebo Model Attachment Plugin

Overview

Once a model has been spawned within Gazebo, it can often be necessary to add or remove Links at runtime without destroying the model. This can be necessary for simulating actions such as end effector swap, item transport (loading and uploading), or pick and place operations. This package enables such simulations by allowing Models to be attached to each other.

Assumptions

• The models must have been spawned and contain the specified link names.

Limitations

• The plugin will not teleport the child model to make the pose of model_name_1/link_name_1 match model_name_2/link_name_2. The attachment will instead occur with the pose difference at the time of the service call being maintained.
  • If the user wishes to have zero pose difference a call to the gazebo/set_link_state service can be made.

Installation

Dependencies

• None

Installation from Packages

PENDING APPROVAL ON ROS_DISTRO

To install all packages from this repository as Debian packages use

sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-boeing-gazebo-model-attachment-plugin

Or better, use rosdep:

sudo rosdep install --from-paths src

Building

To build from source, clone the latest version from this repository into your ros workspace and compile the package using catkin

cd ros_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/boeing/boeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin.git
cd ../
rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src
catkin make

Usage

Add your library path to the GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH

export GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH=$HOME/ros_ws/build:$GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH

Add the plugin to your world file

<sdf version='1.6'>
<world name='default'>

 <plugin name="model_attachment" filename="libboeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin_lib.so"></plugin>
    
    <include>
      <uri>model://ground_plane</uri>
    </include>

    <include>
      <uri>model://sun</uri>
    </include>

    <plugin name="factory" filename="libfactory.so"/>
  </world>
</sdf>

Run Gazebo

gazebo ~/gazebo_plugin_tutorial/test.world

Provided Services

• attach (boeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin/Attach.srv)

  Creates a joint between two links

    ros service call /boeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin/attach
  

  Parameters

  • joint_name (string) The name of the joint to be created

  • model_1 (string) - The name of the parent model.

  • link_1 (string) - The name of the link on the parent model.

  • model_2 (string) - The name of the child model.

  • link_2 (string) - The name of the link on the child model.

  Response

  • success (bool) True if the operation is successful
  • message (string) Contains error message if operation fails.
    

• detach (boeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin/Detach.srv) removes a joint between two links.

    ros2 service call /boeing_gazebo_model_attachment_plugin/detach
  

  Parameters

  • joint_name (string) The name of the joint to be created

  • model_1 (string) - The name of the parent model.

  • model_2 (string) - The name of the child model.

  Response

  • success (bool) True if the operation is successful
  • message (string) Contains error message if operation fails.

    Authors

    The Boeing Company

    Beau Colley-Allerton Jason Cochrane

License

The Config File Validator is released under the Apache 2.0 License

Contributing

Any contribution that you make to this repository will be under the Modified Apache 2 License, as dictated by that license

To contribute, issue a PR and @brta-jc (jason.cochrane@boeing.com)

Changelog for package gazebo_model_attachment_plugin

1.0.1 (2023-12-15)

• Inital Release