Joint Limits Interface

Overview

joint_limits_interface contains data structures for representing joint limits, methods for populating them from common formats such as URDF and the ROS parameter server, and methods for enforcing limits on different kinds of hardware interfaces.

The joint_limits_interface is not used by controllers themselves (it does not implement a HardwareInterface) but instead operates after the controllers have updated, in the write() method (or equivalent) of the robot abstraction. Enforcing limits will overwrite the commands set by the controllers, it does not operate on a separate raw data buffer.

There are two main elements involved in setting up a joint limits interface:

• Joint limits representation
  • JointLimits Position, velocity, acceleration, jerk and effort.
  • SoftJointLimits Soft position limits, k_p, k_v (as described here).
  • Loading from URDF There are convenience methods for loading joint limits information (position, velocity and effort), as well as soft joint limits information from the URDF.
  • Loading from ROS params There are convenience methods for loading joint limits from the ROS parameter server (position, velocity, acceleration, jerk and effort).Parameter specification is the same used in MoveIt, with the addition that we also parse jerk and effort limits.

• Joint limits interface

• For effort-controlled joints, the soft-limits implementation from the PR2 has been ported.
• For position-controlled joints, a modified version of the PR2 soft limits has been implemented.
• For velocity-controlled joints, simple saturation based on acceleration and velocity limits has been implemented.

Examples

Please refer to the joint_limits_interface wiki page.

Changelog for package joint_limits_interface

0.20.0 (2023-10-27)

0.19.6 (2022-10-21)

0.19.5 (2021-06-16)

0.19.4 (2020-12-05)

0.19.3 (2020-10-11)

0.19.2 (2020-08-17)

0.19.1 (2020-05-10)

• Function specifiers noetic (#453)
  • Add override specifiers & default constructors
  • Delete ControllerBase copy & move ctors
  • Remove unnecessary default constructors
  • Modernize additional constructors
  • Revert ImuSensorHandle::<Data::Data>() = default
  • Remove unnecessary default overridden constructors

  * Remove semicolon after function body Co-authored-by: Matt Reynolds <<mtreynolds@uwaterloo.ca>>

• Use setuptools instead of distutils (#429)
• Contributors: Bence Magyar, Matt Reynolds

0.19.0 (2020-04-23)

0.18.0 (2020-04-16)

• Bump CMake version to avoid CMP0048 (#427)
• Contributors: Shane Loretz

0.17.0 (2020-02-24)

• Use default member initializers
• Use braces for member initializers
• Replace boost with std
• Replace boost ptrs with std ptrs in documentation
• Prefer default member initializers
• Contributors: AbhinavSingh, Bence Magyar, Matt Reynolds

0.16.0 (2020-01-27)

• Merge pull request #413 from matthew-reynolds/range-for Use range-based for loop
• Use more meaningful pair iterator names
• Merge pull request #404 from matthew-reynolds/catkin-lint Update CMakeLists.txt and package.xml
• Use range-based for loops in joint_limits_interface
• Update dependencies
  • Dependencies needed to compile are <build_depend>
  • Dependencies used in public headers are <build_export_depend>
  • Dependencies needed to link or run are <exec_depend>
• Merge branch 'melodic-devel' into catkin-lint
• Update package dependencies
• Remove liburdfdom-dev
• Add missing roscpp & rospy dependencies
• Remove rosunit test_depend from package.xml
• Merge pull request #405 from matthew-reynolds/use-nullptr Use nullptr
• Prefer 0.0 for floating point literals
• Merge pull request #406 from matthew-reynolds/pragma-once Use #pragma once
• Replace header guard with #pragma once
• Merge pull request #395 from pal-robotics-forks/extend-interfaces-melodic Extend interfaces
• joint_limits: use an open-loop policy for velocity staturation The feedback from the controller is way too slow to be used on an actual robot. A robot that had 15 rad.s\^-2 on each wheel as an acceleration limit could not even reach 2 rad.s\^-2 This is in line with ros_controllers#23
• Apply consistent style to CMakeLists.txt files
• Apply consistent style to package.xml files
• Merge pull request #398 from matthew-reynolds/revert-cmake Revert CMake include_directories as SYSTEM
• Revert CMake include_directories as SYSTEM
• Merge pull request #396 from pal-robotics-forks/small-fixes Small fixes
• Fix shadowed variables
• -Werror=overloaded-virtual and initialization of fields in constructor
• Contributors: Bence Magyar, Daniel Pinyol, Matt Reynolds, Paul Mathieu, Victor Lopez

0.15.1 (2018-09-30)

0.15.0 (2018-05-28)

0.14.2 (2018-04-26)

• Update maintainers
• Fix catkin_lint errors and warnings
• Contributors: Bence Magyar

0.14.1 (2018-04-16)

0.14.0 (2018-03-26)

0.13.0 (2017-12-23)

• Add method to populate SoftJointLimits from ROS parameter server. (#292)
• Contributors: Miguel Prada

0.12.0 (2017-08-05)

0.11.5 (2017-06-28)

• Throw error if EffortJointSaturationHandle is missing effort or velocity limits
• Contributors: Bence Magyar, Dave Coleman

0.11.4 (2017-02-14)

0.11.3 (2016-12-07)

• Add urdf compatibility header
• Contributors: Bence Magyar

0.11.2 (2016-11-28)

• Add Enrique and Bence to maintainer list
• Clean up export leftovers from rosbuild
• Convert to format2, fix dependency in cmake
• Replace boost::shared_ptr<urdf::XY> with urdf::XYConstSharedPtr
• Contributors: Bence Magyar

0.11.1 (2016-08-18)

0.11.0 (2016-05-23)

0.10.1 (2016-04-23)

• Fix catkin_package
  • Don't export local include dirs.
  • Fix dependency on urdfdom (Thanks to Mathias Lüdtke).
• Contributors: Jochen Sprickerhof

0.10.0 (2015-11-20)

0.9.3 (2015-05-05)

0.9.2 (2015-05-04)

• Reset functionality for stateful position joint limit handles
• Contributors: Mathias Lüdtke

0.9.1 (2014-11-03)

0.9.0 (2014-10-31)

• Buildsystem and documentation fixes
• Add inline keyword to free header functions
• Contributors: Adolfo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian, Lukas Bulwahn, shadowmanos

0.8.2 (2014-06-25)

• Propagate urdfdom changes to CMakeLists.txt urdfdom is now standalone, so it must be find_package'd independently.
• Fix rostest, which was not being built correctly.
• Contributors: Adolfo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian

0.8.1 (2014-06-24)

• Use upstream liburdfdom-dev package. Refs ros/rosdistro#4633.
• Contributors: Adolfo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian

0.8.0 (2014-05-12)

• Remove rosbuild artifacts. Fix #154.
• Contributors: Adolfo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian

0.7.2 (2014-04-01)

0.7.1 (2014-03-31)

• Fix dependency specification in CMake script to allow isolated builds.
• Contributors: Adolfo Rodriguez Tsouroukdissian

0.7.0 (2014-03-28)

0.6.0 (2014-02-05)

• Updated the interface list.
• Added the PositionJointSaturationInterface and VelocitySoftLimitsInterface classes. There are now saturation and soft limit classes for effort-controlled, position-controlled, and velocity-controlled joints.
• Contributors: Jim Rothrock

0.5.8 (2013-10-11)

• Merge pull request #121 from pal-robotics/hydro-devel Fixes for next minor release
• Added the EffortJointSaturationHandle and EffortJointSaturationInterface classes. They are used with joints that do not have soft limits specified in their URDF files.
• Minor documentation precision.

• Make position joint limits handle opn loop. - Lowers the entry barrier for simple robots without velocity measurements, poor control tracking or with a slow update rate.

• Update README.md
• Create README.md
• CMakeLists fix to fit with OpenEmbedded/Yocto meta-ros layer. Increase the compatibility of the ros_control code with meta-ros, an OpenEmbedded/Yocto layer that provides recipes for ROS packages disabling catking checking the variable CATKIN_ENABLE_TESTING.
• Fix license header in some files.
• Renamed joint_limits_interface manifext.xml

0.5.7 (2013-07-30)

• Updated changelogs
• Add angle_wraparound joint limit property. For full compatibility with MoveIt!'s joint limit specification. Note that we still have the extra effort and jerk specification.

0.5.6 (2013-07-29)

0.5.5 (2013-07-23)

0.5.4 (2013-07-23)

0.5.3 (2013-07-22)

0.5.2 (2013-07-22)

• Fixed gtests for joint_limits_interface in catkin
• Merge pull request #93 from pal-robotics/master joint_limits_interface broken in Groocy and Hydro
• Fix for joint_limits tests in catkin
• Restore urdf dependencies. Add conditional compilation for Fuerte and Groovy+ distros.

0.5.1 (2013-07-19)

0.5.0 (2013-07-16)

• Made joint_limits_interface match hydro version number
• Removed urdf_interface dependencies
• Add meta tags to packages not specifying them.
  • Website, bugtracker, repository.
• Better documentation of YAML joint limits spec.
  • Add cross-references in doc main page.
• Documentation improvements.
  • More consistency between transmission and joint limits interfaces doc.

  - Make explicit that these interfaces are not meant to be used by controllers, but by the robot abstraction.

• build dependency rostest added to package.xml and rostest added to CMakeLists.txt
• Added dependency for rostest to fix build error
• Fix compiler warnings (-Wreorder)
• Minor doc structure improvements.
• Add main page to joint_limits_interface doc.
• Remove temporary file from version control.

• Add attribution for soft_limits code. - Soft-limits enforcing is based on a previous implementation by Willow Garage. Add them in the copyright holders list.

• Lower severity of log message.
• Allow unsetting limits specification from rosparam.
  • Update tests.
• Add .gitignore
• Add joint limits parsing from rosparam + unit test.
• Add max_jerk to limits specification.
• Minor maintenance fixes.
• Add documentation.
• Extensive file, namespace, class renaming.

0.4.0 (2013-06-25)