Package Summary

Tags No category tags.
Version 2.2.10
License BSD-3-Clause
Build type AMENT_CMAKE
Use RECOMMENDED

Repository Summary

Checkout URI https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver.git
VCS Type git
VCS Version humble
Last Updated 2024-02-26
Dev Status DEVELOPED
CI status No Continuous Integration
Released RELEASED
Tags No category tags.
Contributing Help Wanted (0)
Good First Issues (0)
Pull Requests to Review (0)

Package Description

The new driver for Universal Robots UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots with CB3 controllers and the e-series.

Additional Links

Maintainers

  • Denis Stogl
  • Felix Exner
  • Robert Wilbrandt

Authors

  • Marvin Große Besselmann
  • Lovro Ivanov
  • Andy Zelenak
  • Thomas Timm Andersen
  • Simon Rasmussen
  • Felix Exner
  • Lea Steffen
  • Tristan Schnell

ur_robot_driver

This package contains the actual driver for UR robots. It is part of the universal_robots_driver repository and requires other packages from that repository. Also, see the main repository's README for information on how to install and startup this driver.

ROS-API

The ROS API is documented in a standalone document.

Technical details

The following image shows a very coarse overview of the driver's architecture.

Architecture overview

Upon connection to the primary interface the robot sends version and calibration information which is consumed by the calibration_check. If the calibration reported by the robot doesn't match the one configured (See calibration guide) an error will be printed to Roslog.

Real-time data from the robot is read through the RTDE interface. This is done automatically as soon as a connection to the robot could be established. Thus joint states and IO data will be immediately available.

To actually control the robot, a program node from the External Control URCap must be running on the robot interpreting commands sent from an external source. When this program is not running, no controllers moving the robot around will be available. Please see the initial setup guide on how to install and start this on the robot.

The URScript that will be running on the robot is requested by the External Control program node from the remote ROS PC. The robot ur_control.launch file has a parameter called urscript_file to select a different program than the default one that will be sent as a response to a program request.

Custom script snippets can be sent to the robot on a topic basis. By default, they will interrupt other programs (such as the one controlling the robot). For a certain subset of functions, it is however possible to send them as secondary programs. See UR documentation on details.
Note to e-Series users: The robot won't accept script code from a remote source unless the robot is put into remote_control-mode. However, if put into remote_control-mode, the program containing the External Control program node can't be started from the panel. For this purpose, please use the dashboard services to load, start and stop the main program running on the robot. See the ROS-API documentation for details on the dashboard services.

For using the tool communication interface on e-Series robots, a socat script is prepared to forward the robot's tool communication interface to a local device on the ROS PC. See the tool communication setup guide for details.

This driver is using ROS-Control for any control statements. Therefore, it can be used with all position-based controllers available in ROS-Control. However, we recommend using the controllers from the ur_controllers package. See it's documentation for details. Note: Speed scaling support will only be available using the controllers from ur_controllers

A note about modes

The term mode is used in different meanings inside this driver.

Remote control mode

On the e-series the robot itself can operate in different command modes: It can be either in local control mode where the teach pendant is the single point of command or in remote control mode, where motions from the TP, starting & loading programs from the TP activating the freedrive mode are blocked. Note that the remote control mode has to be explicitly enabled in the robot's settings under Settings -> System -> Remote Control. See the robot's manual for details.

The remote control mode is needed for many aspects of this driver such as * headless mode (see below) * sending script code to the robot * many dashboard functionalities such as * restarting the robot after protective / EM-Stop * powering on the robot and do brake release * loading and starting programs * the set_mode action, as it uses the dashboard calls mentioned above

Headless mode

Inside this driver, there's the headless mode, which can be either enabled or not. When the headless mode is activated, required script code for external control will be sent to the robot directly when the driver starts. As soon as other script code is sent to the robot either by sending it directly through this driver or by pressing any motion-related button on the teach pendant, the script will be overwritten by this action and has to be restarted by using the resend_robot_program service. If this is necessary, you will see the output Connection to robot dropped, waiting for new connection. from the driver. Note that pressing "play" on the TP won't start the external control again, but whatever program is currently loaded on the controller. This mode doesn't require the "External Control" URCap being installed on the robot as the program is sent to the robot directly. However, we recommend to use the non-headless mode and leverage the set_mode action to start program execution without the teach pendant. The headless mode might be removed in future releases.

Note for the e-Series: In order to leverage the headless mode on the e-Series the robot must be in remote_control_mode as explained above.

controller_stopper

A small helper node that stops and restarts ROS controllers based on a boolean status topic. When the status goes to false, all running controllers except a set of predefined consistent_controllers gets stopped. If status returns to true the stopped controllers are restarted. This is done by Subscribing to a robot's running state topic. Ideally this topic is latched and only publishes on changes. However, this node only reacts on state changes, so a state published each cycle would also be fine.

CHANGELOG

2.2.10 (2024-01-03)

  • Add backward_ros to driver (#872) (#878)
  • Port configuration (#835) (#847)
  • Update link to MoveIt! documentation (#845)
  • Contributors: mergify[bot]

2.2.9 (2023-09-22)

  • Added a test that sjtc correctly aborts on violation of constraints
  • Added support for UR20 (#805)
  • Introduced tf_prefix into log handler (#713)
  • Start ursim from lib (#733)
  • Run robot driver test also with tf_prefix (#729)
  • Urscript interface (#721) (#742)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner, Lennart Nachtigall, mergify[bot]

2.2.8 (2023-06-26)

  • Use tf prefix properly (backport #688) (#725)
  • Use SCHED_FIFO for controller_manager\'s main thread (#719) (#722)
  • Contributors: mergify[bot]

2.2.7 (2023-06-02)

  • Calling on_deactivate in dtr (#679) (#704)
  • Adds full nonblocking readout support (Multiarm part 4) - v2 (#673) (#703)
  • Correct calibration correction launch file in doc (#590)
  • Introduce hand back control service (#528) (#670)
  • Update definition of test goals to new version. (backport #637) (#668)
  • Default path to ur_client_library urscript (#316) (#553)
    • Change default path for urscript for headless mode.
    • Replace urscript path also in newer ur_robot_driver launchfile
  • Wait longer for controllers to load and activate
  • Fix flaky tests (#641)
  • Added services to set tool voltage and zero force torque sensor (#466) (#582)
  • Controller spawner timeout (backport #608) (#609)
  • Fix cmake dependency on controller_manager (backport #598) (#599)
  • Increase timeout for first test service call to driver (Backport of #605) (#607)
  • Update linters & checkers (backport #426) (#556)
  • Clean up & improve execution tests (Backport of #512) (#552)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner (fexner), Lennart Nachtigall, Robert Wilbrandt, mergify[bot], Denis Stogl, livanov93, Mads Holm Peters

2.2.6 (2022-11-28)

  • Cleanup humble branch (#545)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner (fexner)

2.2.5 (2022-11-19)

  • ur_robot_driver: Controller_stopper fix deprecation warning
  • Fix tool voltage setup (#526)

    • Move BEGIN_REPLACE inside of header

    * Change default value of tool_voltage Keeping this at 0 requires users to explicitly set it to non-zero. This way we won\'t accitentally destroy hardware that cannot handle 24V.

  • Added dependency to socat (#527) This is needed for the tool forwarding.

  • Add a note in the tool_comm doc about a URCap conflict (#524)

    • Add a note in the tool_comm doc about a URCap conflict

    * Update ur_robot_driver/doc/setup_tool_communication.rst Co-authored-by: Mads Holm Peters <79145214+urmahp@users.noreply.github.com> * Fix formatting and one spelling mistake Co-authored-by: Mads Holm Peters <79145214+urmahp@users.noreply.github.com>

  • Contributors: Felix Exner, Felix Exner (fexner)

2.2.4 (2022-10-07)

  • Remove the custom ursim docker files (#478) This has been migrated inside the docs and is not needed anymore.
  • Remove duplicated update_rate parameter (#479)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.2.3 (2022-07-27)

  • Adapt ros control api (#448)

    • scaled jtc: Use get_interface_name instead of get_name

    * Migrate from stopped controllers to inactive controllers stopped controllers has been depreated upstream

  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.2.2 (2022-07-19)

  • Made sure all past maintainers are listed as authors (#429)
  • Silence a compilation warning (#425) Since setting the receive timeout takes the time_buffer as an argument this raises a \"may be used uninitialized\" warning. Setting this to 0 explicitly should prevent that.
  • Doc: Fix IP address in usage->ursim section (#422)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.2.1 (2022-06-27)

  • Fixed controller name for force_torque_sensor_broadcaster (#411)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.2.0 (2022-06-20)

  • Updated package maintainers
  • Rework bringup (#403)
  • Prepare for humble (#394)
  • Update dependencies on all packages (#391)
  • Update HW-interface API for humble. (#377)
  • Use types in hardware interface from ros2_control in local namespace (#339)
  • Update header extension to remove compile warning. (#285)
  • Add resource files from ROS World. (#226)
  • Add sphinx documentation (#340)
  • Update license to BSD-3-Clause (#277)
  • Update ROS_INTERFACE.md to current driver (#335)
  • Fix hardware interface names in error output (#329)
  • Added controller stopper node (#309)
  • Correct link to calibration extraction (#310)
  • Start the tool communication script if the flag is set (#267)
  • Change driver constructor and change calibration check (#282)
  • Use GPIO tag from URDF in driver. (#224)
  • Separate control node (#281)
  • Add missing dependency on angles and update formatting for linters. (#283)
  • Do not print an error output if writing is not possible (#266)
  • Update features.md (#250)
  • Tool communication (#218)
  • Payload service (#238)
  • Import transformation of force-torque into tcp frame from ROS1 driver (https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS_Driver/blob/master/ur_robot_driver/src/hardware_interface.cpp). (#237)
  • Make reading and writing work when hardware is disconnected (#233)
  • Add missing command and state interfaces to get everything working with the fake hardware and add some comment into xacro file to be clearer. (#221)
  • Decrease the rate of async tasks. (#223)
  • Change robot type. (#220)
  • Driver to headless. (#217)
  • Test execution tests (#216)
  • Integration tests improvement (#206)
  • Set start modes to empty. Avoid position ctrl loop on start. (#211)
  • Add resend program service and enable headless mode (#198)
  • Implement \"choices\" for robot_type param (#204)
  • Calibration extraction package (#186)
  • Add breaking api changes from ros2_control to hardware_interface (#189)
  • Fix prepare and perform switch operation (#191)
  • Update CI configuration to support galactic and rolling (#142)
  • Dockerize ursim with driver in docker compose (#144)
  • Enabling velocity mode (#146)
  • Moved registering publisher and service to on_active (#151)
  • Converted io_test and switch_on_test to ROS2 (#124)
  • Added loghandler to handle log messages from the Client Library with ... (#126)
  • Removed dashboard client from hardware interface
  • [WIP] Updated feature list (#102)
  • Moved Async check out of script running check (#112)
  • Fix gpio controller (#103)
  • Fixed speed slider service call (#100)
  • Adding missing backslash and only setting workdir once (#108)
  • Added dockerfile for the driver (#105)
  • Using official Universal Robot Client Library (#101)
  • Reintegrating missing ur_client_library dependency since the break the building process (#97)
  • Fix readme hardware setup (#91)
  • Fix move to home bug (#92)
  • Using modern python
  • Some intermediate commit
  • Remove obsolete and unused files and packages. (#80)
  • Review CI by correcting the configurations (#71)
  • Add support for gpios, update MoveIt and ros2_control launching (#66)
  • Quickfix against move home bug
  • Added missing initialization
  • Use GitHub Actions, use pre-commit formatting (#56)
  • Put dashboard services into corresponding namespace
  • Start dashboard client from within the hardware interface
  • Added try catch blocks for service calls
  • Removed repeated declaration of timeout parameter which lead to connection crash
  • Removed static service name in which all auto generated services where mapped
  • Removed unused variable
  • Fixed clang-format issue
  • Removed all robot status stuff
  • Exchanged hardcoded value for RobotState msgs enum
  • Removed currently unused controller state variables
  • Added placeholder for industrial_robot_status_interface
  • Fixed clang issues
  • Added checks for internal robot state machine
  • Only load speed scaling interface
  • Changed state interface to combined speed scaling factor
  • Added missing formatting in hardware interface
  • Initial version of the speed_scaling_state_controller
  • Fix clang tidy in multiple pkgs.
  • Clang tidy fix.
  • Update force torque state controller.
  • Prepare for testing.
  • Fix decision breaker for position control. Make decision effect instantaneous.
  • Use only position interface.
  • Update hardware interface for ROS2 (#8)
  • Update the dashboard client for ROS2 (#5)
  • Hardware interface framework (#3)
  • Add XML schema to all package.xml files
  • Silence ament_lint_cmake errors
  • Update packaging for ROS2
  • Update package.xml files so ros2 pkg list shows all pkgs
  • Clean out ur_robot_driver for initial ROS2 compilation
  • Compile ur_dashboard_msgs for ROS2
  • Delete all launch/config files with no UR5 relation
  • Initial work toward compiling ur_robot_driver
  • Update CMakeLists and package.xml for:
    • ur5_moveit_config
    • ur_bringup
    • ur_description
  • Change pkg versions to 0.0.0
  • Contributors: AndyZe, Denis Stogl, Denis

Wiki Tutorials

See ROS Wiki Tutorials for more details.

Source Tutorials

Not currently indexed.

Launch files

No launch files found

Messages

No message files found.

Services

No service files found

Plugins

No plugins found.

Recent questions tagged ur_robot_driver at Robotics Stack Exchange

Package Summary

Tags No category tags.
Version 2.3.5
License BSD-3-Clause
Build type AMENT_CMAKE
Use RECOMMENDED

Repository Summary

Checkout URI https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver.git
VCS Type git
VCS Version iron
Last Updated 2024-02-26
Dev Status DEVELOPED
CI status No Continuous Integration
Released RELEASED
Tags No category tags.
Contributing Help Wanted (0)
Good First Issues (0)
Pull Requests to Review (0)

Package Description

The new driver for Universal Robots UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots with CB3 controllers and the e-series.

Additional Links

Maintainers

  • Denis Stogl
  • Felix Exner
  • Robert Wilbrandt

Authors

  • Marvin Große Besselmann
  • Lovro Ivanov
  • Andy Zelenak
  • Thomas Timm Andersen
  • Simon Rasmussen
  • Felix Exner
  • Lea Steffen
  • Tristan Schnell

ur_robot_driver

This package contains the actual driver for UR robots. It is part of the universal_robots_driver repository and requires other packages from that repository. Also, see the main repository's README for information on how to install and startup this driver.

ROS-API

The ROS API is documented in a standalone document.

Technical details

The following image shows a very coarse overview of the driver's architecture.

Architecture overview

Upon connection to the primary interface the robot sends version and calibration information which is consumed by the calibration_check. If the calibration reported by the robot doesn't match the one configured (See calibration guide) an error will be printed to Roslog.

Real-time data from the robot is read through the RTDE interface. This is done automatically as soon as a connection to the robot could be established. Thus joint states and IO data will be immediately available.

To actually control the robot, a program node from the External Control URCap must be running on the robot interpreting commands sent from an external source. When this program is not running, no controllers moving the robot around will be available. Please see the initial setup guide on how to install and start this on the robot.

The URScript that will be running on the robot is requested by the External Control program node from the remote ROS PC. The robot ur_control.launch file has a parameter called urscript_file to select a different program than the default one that will be sent as a response to a program request.

Custom script snippets can be sent to the robot on a topic basis. By default, they will interrupt other programs (such as the one controlling the robot). For a certain subset of functions, it is however possible to send them as secondary programs. See UR documentation on details.
Note to e-Series users: The robot won't accept script code from a remote source unless the robot is put into remote_control-mode. However, if put into remote_control-mode, the program containing the External Control program node can't be started from the panel. For this purpose, please use the dashboard services to load, start and stop the main program running on the robot. See the ROS-API documentation for details on the dashboard services.

For using the tool communication interface on e-Series robots, a socat script is prepared to forward the robot's tool communication interface to a local device on the ROS PC. See the tool communication setup guide for details.

This driver is using ROS-Control for any control statements. Therefore, it can be used with all position-based controllers available in ROS-Control. However, we recommend using the controllers from the ur_controllers package. See it's documentation for details. Note: Speed scaling support will only be available using the controllers from ur_controllers

A note about modes

The term mode is used in different meanings inside this driver.

Remote control mode

On the e-series the robot itself can operate in different command modes: It can be either in local control mode where the teach pendant is the single point of command or in remote control mode, where motions from the TP, starting & loading programs from the TP activating the freedrive mode are blocked. Note that the remote control mode has to be explicitly enabled in the robot's settings under Settings -> System -> Remote Control. See the robot's manual for details.

The remote control mode is needed for many aspects of this driver such as * headless mode (see below) * sending script code to the robot * many dashboard functionalities such as * restarting the robot after protective / EM-Stop * powering on the robot and do brake release * loading and starting programs * the set_mode action, as it uses the dashboard calls mentioned above

Headless mode

Inside this driver, there's the headless mode, which can be either enabled or not. When the headless mode is activated, required script code for external control will be sent to the robot directly when the driver starts. As soon as other script code is sent to the robot either by sending it directly through this driver or by pressing any motion-related button on the teach pendant, the script will be overwritten by this action and has to be restarted by using the resend_robot_program service. If this is necessary, you will see the output Connection to robot dropped, waiting for new connection. from the driver. Note that pressing "play" on the TP won't start the external control again, but whatever program is currently loaded on the controller. This mode doesn't require the "External Control" URCap being installed on the robot as the program is sent to the robot directly. However, we recommend to use the non-headless mode and leverage the set_mode action to start program execution without the teach pendant. The headless mode might be removed in future releases.

Note for the e-Series: In order to leverage the headless mode on the e-Series the robot must be in remote_control_mode as explained above.

controller_stopper

A small helper node that stops and restarts ROS controllers based on a boolean status topic. When the status goes to false, all running controllers except a set of predefined consistent_controllers gets stopped. If status returns to true the stopped controllers are restarted. This is done by Subscribing to a robot's running state topic. Ideally this topic is latched and only publishes on changes. However, this node only reacts on state changes, so a state published each cycle would also be fine.

CHANGELOG

2.3.5 (2023-12-06)

  • Move installation instructions to subpage (#885) (cherry picked from commit 202a70c5f8f67c9e3ee2723084c0170a5a1050ae) Co-authored-by: Felix Exner (fexner) <exner@fzi.de>
  • Add backward_ros to driver (#872) (#879) (cherry picked from commit 21b7aa38e27382a206066111833c0a62377aa589) Co-authored-by: Felix Exner (fexner) <exner@fzi.de>
  • Port configuration (#835) (#848) (cherry picked from commit f16ae2af7eb63f8d1c74c7e873347d4f32cacf4f) Co-authored-by: Felix Durchdewald <145785497+fdurchdewald@users.noreply.github.com>
  • Update link to MoveIt! documentation (#846) (cherry picked from commit 3311cf849578ae38408088555c79397932c03cc4) Co-authored-by: Felix Exner (fexner) <exner@fzi.de>
  • Contributors: mergify[bot]

2.3.4 (2023-09-21)

  • Added a test that sjtc correctly aborts on violation of constraints (#813)
  • Added support for UR20 (#806)
  • Introduced tf_prefix into log handler (#713)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner, Lennart Nachtigall

2.3.3 (2023-08-23)

  • Run robot driver test also with tf_prefix (#729) (#752)

    • Run robot driver test also with tf_prefix
    • Use tf_prefix substitution in controllers config file

    * Set default value of tf_prefix in launchfile to empty instead of \'\"\"\' ---------Co-authored-by: Robert Wilbrandt <wilbrandt@fzi.de> (cherry picked from commit 79bfddc7ac4cd3a69594da26ce6ae8b8024eae73) Co-authored-by: Felix Exner (fexner) <exner@fzi.de>

  • Urscript interface (#721)

    • Add a urscript interface node
    • Add urscript_interface to standard launchfile
    • Added documentation for urscript_interface
    • Add a notice about incorrect script code
    • Add test for urscript interface

    * Move tests to one single tests This should avoid that different tests run in parallel - Wait for IO controller before checking IOs - Write an initial textmessage when connecting the urscript_interface - Wait for controller_manager services longer

    * Make sure we have a clean robot state without any program running once we enter our test similar to how we did it on the robot_driver test - Remove unneeded Destructor definition

  • Use SCHED_FIFO for controller_manager\'s main thread (#719) Previous investigations showed that using FIFO scheduling helps keeping cycle times also non non-RT kernels. This combined with non-blocking read can result in a very stable system. This is, in fact, very close to what the actual controller_manager_node does except that we always use FIFO scheduling independent of the actual kernel in use.

  • Contributors: Felix Exner (fexner), mergify[bot]

2.3.2 (2023-06-02)

  • Adds full nonblocking readout support (Multiarm part 4) - v2 (#673)
  • Removed workaround also in export_command_interfaces (#692)
  • Calling on_deactivate in dtr (#679)
  • Fixed formatting (#685)
  • Remove tf_prefix workaround in hw interface
  • Ported controllers to generate_parameters library and added prefix for controllers (Multiarm part 2) (#594)
  • Remove ur_bringup package (#666)
  • Introduce hand back control service (#528)
  • Apply suggestions from code review
  • Update definition of test goals to new version.
  • Wait longer for controllers to load and activate
  • Fix flaky tests (#641)
    • Move robot startup into test\'s setUp function
    • Robustify robot startup
  • This commits adds additional configuration parameters needed for multiarm support.
  • Add timeout to execution test
  • Improve logging for robot execution tests
  • Contributors: Denis

Wiki Tutorials

See ROS Wiki Tutorials for more details.

Source Tutorials

Not currently indexed.

Launch files

No launch files found

Messages

No message files found.

Services

No service files found

Plugins

No plugins found.

Recent questions tagged ur_robot_driver at Robotics Stack Exchange

Package Summary

Tags No category tags.
Version 2.4.3
License BSD-3-Clause
Build type AMENT_CMAKE
Use RECOMMENDED

Repository Summary

Checkout URI https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver.git
VCS Type git
VCS Version main
Last Updated 2024-03-18
Dev Status DEVELOPED
CI status No Continuous Integration
Released RELEASED
Tags No category tags.
Contributing Help Wanted (0)
Good First Issues (0)
Pull Requests to Review (0)

Package Description

The new driver for Universal Robots UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots with CB3 controllers and the e-series.

Additional Links

Maintainers

  • Denis Stogl
  • Felix Exner
  • Robert Wilbrandt

Authors

  • Marvin Große Besselmann
  • Lovro Ivanov
  • Andy Zelenak
  • Thomas Timm Andersen
  • Simon Rasmussen
  • Felix Exner
  • Lea Steffen
  • Tristan Schnell

ur_robot_driver

This package contains the actual driver for UR robots. It is part of the universal_robots_driver repository and requires other packages from that repository. Also, see the main repository's README for information on how to install and startup this driver.

ROS-API

The ROS API is documented in a standalone document.

Technical details

The following image shows a very coarse overview of the driver's architecture.

Architecture overview

Upon connection to the primary interface the robot sends version and calibration information which is consumed by the calibration_check. If the calibration reported by the robot doesn't match the one configured (See calibration guide) an error will be printed to Roslog.

Real-time data from the robot is read through the RTDE interface. This is done automatically as soon as a connection to the robot could be established. Thus joint states and IO data will be immediately available.

To actually control the robot, a program node from the External Control URCap must be running on the robot interpreting commands sent from an external source. When this program is not running, no controllers moving the robot around will be available. Please see the initial setup guide on how to install and start this on the robot.

The URScript that will be running on the robot is requested by the External Control program node from the remote ROS PC. The robot ur_control.launch file has a parameter called urscript_file to select a different program than the default one that will be sent as a response to a program request.

Custom script snippets can be sent to the robot on a topic basis. By default, they will interrupt other programs (such as the one controlling the robot). For a certain subset of functions, it is however possible to send them as secondary programs. See UR documentation on details.
Note to e-Series users: The robot won't accept script code from a remote source unless the robot is put into remote_control-mode. However, if put into remote_control-mode, the program containing the External Control program node can't be started from the panel. For this purpose, please use the dashboard services to load, start and stop the main program running on the robot. See the ROS-API documentation for details on the dashboard services.

For using the tool communication interface on e-Series robots, a socat script is prepared to forward the robot's tool communication interface to a local device on the ROS PC. See the tool communication setup guide for details.

This driver is using ROS-Control for any control statements. Therefore, it can be used with all position-based controllers available in ROS-Control. However, we recommend using the controllers from the ur_controllers package. See it's documentation for details. Note: Speed scaling support will only be available using the controllers from ur_controllers

A note about modes

The term mode is used in different meanings inside this driver.

Remote control mode

On the e-series the robot itself can operate in different command modes: It can be either in local control mode where the teach pendant is the single point of command or in remote control mode, where motions from the TP, starting & loading programs from the TP activating the freedrive mode are blocked. Note that the remote control mode has to be explicitly enabled in the robot's settings under Settings -> System -> Remote Control. See the robot's manual for details.

The remote control mode is needed for many aspects of this driver such as * headless mode (see below) * sending script code to the robot * many dashboard functionalities such as * restarting the robot after protective / EM-Stop * powering on the robot and do brake release * loading and starting programs * the set_mode action, as it uses the dashboard calls mentioned above

Headless mode

Inside this driver, there's the headless mode, which can be either enabled or not. When the headless mode is activated, required script code for external control will be sent to the robot directly when the driver starts. As soon as other script code is sent to the robot either by sending it directly through this driver or by pressing any motion-related button on the teach pendant, the script will be overwritten by this action and has to be restarted by using the resend_robot_program service. If this is necessary, you will see the output Connection to robot dropped, waiting for new connection. from the driver. Note that pressing "play" on the TP won't start the external control again, but whatever program is currently loaded on the controller. This mode doesn't require the "External Control" URCap being installed on the robot as the program is sent to the robot directly. However, we recommend to use the non-headless mode and leverage the set_mode action to start program execution without the teach pendant. The headless mode might be removed in future releases.

Note for the e-Series: In order to leverage the headless mode on the e-Series the robot must be in remote_control_mode as explained above.

controller_stopper

A small helper node that stops and restarts ROS controllers based on a boolean status topic. When the status goes to false, all running controllers except a set of predefined consistent_controllers gets stopped. If status returns to true the stopped controllers are restarted. This is done by Subscribing to a robot's running state topic. Ideally this topic is latched and only publishes on changes. However, this node only reacts on state changes, so a state published each cycle would also be fine.

CHANGELOG

2.4.3 (2024-02-02)

  • Add UR30 support (#899)
  • Add control description and ros2_control tag to driver. (#877)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner (fexner)

2.4.2 (2023-11-23)

  • [README] Move installation instructions to subpage (#870)
  • Add backward_ros to driver (#872)
  • Simplify tests (#849)
  • Port configuration (#835) Added possibility to change the reverse_port, script_sender_port and trajectory_port
  • [README] Update link to MoveIt! documentation
  • Do not start urscipt_interface when using mock hardware
  • Contributors: Felix Durchdewald, Felix Exner, RobertWilbrandt

2.4.1 (2023-09-21)

  • Added a test that sjtc correctly aborts on violation of constraints (#810)
  • Added support for UR20 (#797)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.4.0 (2023-08-28)

  • Start ursim from lib (#733)
    • Forward start_ursim.sh to the one from the client library
    • Update docs and tests to start ursim from the ur_client_library script
  • Update velocity-control on feature list (#573) ros2_controllers jtc does support velocity control by now, so we should not state it doesn\'t.
  • Introduced tf_prefix into log handler (#713)

    • Introduced tf_prefix into log handler

    * added default argument to prefix ---------Co-authored-by: Lennart Nachtigall <firesurfer@firesurfer.de> Co-authored-by: Felix Exner <exner@fzi.de> Co-authored-by: Lennart Nachtigall <lennart.nachtigall@sci-mo.de>

  • Run robot driver test also with tf_prefix (#729)

    • Run robot driver test also with tf_prefix
    • Use tf_prefix substitution in controllers config file

    * Set default value of tf_prefix in launchfile to empty instead of \'\"\"\' ---------Co-authored-by: Robert Wilbrandt <wilbrandt@fzi.de>

  • Use mock_hardware and mock_sensor_commands instead of fake (#739) * Use mock_hardware and mock_sensor_commands instead of fake This has been deprecated a while back and was never adapted.

    • Update documentation to mock_hardware
  • Urscript interface (#721)

    • Add a urscript interface node
    • Add urscript_interface to standard launchfile
    • Added documentation for urscript_interface
    • Add a notice about incorrect script code
    • Add test for urscript interface

    * Move tests to one single tests This should avoid that different tests run in parallel - Wait for IO controller before checking IOs - Write an initial textmessage when connecting the urscript_interface - Wait for controller_manager services longer

    * Make sure we have a clean robot state without any program running once we enter our test similar to how we did it on the robot_driver test - Remove unneeded Destructor definition

  • Use SCHED_FIFO for controller_manager\'s main thread (#719) Previous investigations showed that using FIFO scheduling helps keeping cycle times also non non-RT kernels. This combined with non-blocking read can result in a very stable system. This is, in fact, very close to what the actual controller_manager_node does except that we always use FIFO scheduling independent of the actual kernel in use.

  • Contributors: Felix Exner (fexner), Lennart Nachtigall

2.3.2 (2023-06-02)

  • Adds full nonblocking readout support (Multiarm part 4) - v2 (#673)
  • Removed workaround also in export_command_interfaces (#692)
  • Calling on_deactivate in dtr (#679)
  • Fixed formatting (#685)
  • Remove tf_prefix workaround in hw interface
  • Ported controllers to generate_parameters library and added prefix for controllers (Multiarm part 2) (#594)
  • Remove ur_bringup package (#666)
  • Introduce hand back control service (#528)
  • Apply suggestions from code review
  • Update definition of test goals to new version.
  • Wait longer for controllers to load and activate
  • Fix flaky tests (#641)
    • Move robot startup into test\'s setUp function
    • Robustify robot startup
  • This commits adds additional configuration parameters needed for multiarm support.
  • Add timeout to execution test
  • Improve logging for robot execution tests
  • Contributors: Denis

Wiki Tutorials

See ROS Wiki Tutorials for more details.

Source Tutorials

Not currently indexed.

Launch files

No launch files found

Messages

No message files found.

Services

No service files found

Plugins

No plugins found.

Recent questions tagged ur_robot_driver at Robotics Stack Exchange

Package Summary

Tags No category tags.
Version 2.1.2
License BSD-3-Clause
Build type AMENT_CMAKE
Use RECOMMENDED

Repository Summary

Checkout URI https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver.git
VCS Type git
VCS Version galactic
Last Updated 2022-10-11
Dev Status DEVELOPED
CI status No Continuous Integration
Released RELEASED
Tags No category tags.
Contributing Help Wanted (0)
Good First Issues (0)
Pull Requests to Review (0)

Package Description

The new driver for Universal Robots UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots with CB3 controllers and the e-series.

Additional Links

Maintainers

  • Denis Stogl
  • Felix Exner
  • Tristan Schnell

Authors

  • Thomas Timm Andersen
  • Simon Rasmussen
  • Felix Exner
  • Lea Steffen
  • Tristan Schnell

ur_robot_driver

This package contains the actual driver for UR robots. It is part of the universal_robots_driver repository and requires other packages from that repository. Also, see the main repository's README for information on how to install and startup this driver.

ROS-API

The ROS API is documented in a standalone document.

Technical details

The following image shows a very coarse overview of the driver's architecture.

Architecture overview

Upon connection to the primary interface the robot sends version and calibration information which is consumed by the calibration_check. If the calibration reported by the robot doesn't match the one configured (See calibration guide) an error will be printed to Roslog.

Real-time data from the robot is read through the RTDE interface. This is done automatically as soon as a connection to the robot could be established. Thus joint states and IO data will be immediately available.

To actually control the robot, a program node from the External Control URCap must be running on the robot interpreting commands sent from an external source. When this program is not running, no controllers moving the robot around will be available. Please see the initial setup guide on how to install and start this on the robot.

The URScript that will be running on the robot is requested by the External Control program node from the remote ROS PC. The robot ur_control.launch file has a parameter called urscript_file to select a different program than the default one that will be sent as a response to a program request.

Custom script snippets can be sent to the robot on a topic basis. By default, they will interrupt other programs (such as the one controlling the robot). For a certain subset of functions, it is however possible to send them as secondary programs. See UR documentation on details.
Note to e-Series users: The robot won't accept script code from a remote source unless the robot is put into remote_control-mode. However, if put into remote_control-mode, the program containing the External Control program node can't be started from the panel. For this purpose, please use the dashboard services to load, start and stop the main program running on the robot. See the ROS-API documentation for details on the dashboard services.

For using the tool communication interface on e-Series robots, a socat script is prepared to forward the robot's tool communication interface to a local device on the ROS PC. See the tool communication setup guide for details.

This driver is using ROS-Control for any control statements. Therefore, it can be used with all position-based controllers available in ROS-Control. However, we recommend using the controllers from the ur_controllers package. See it's documentation for details. Note: Speed scaling support will only be available using the controllers from ur_controllers

A note about modes

The term mode is used in different meanings inside this driver.

Remote control mode

On the e-series the robot itself can operate in different command modes: It can be either in local control mode where the teach pendant is the single point of command or in remote control mode, where motions from the TP, starting & loading programs from the TP activating the freedrive mode are blocked. Note that the remote control mode has to be explicitly enabled in the robot's settings under Settings -> System -> Remote Control. See the robot's manual for details.

The remote control mode is needed for many aspects of this driver such as * headless mode (see below) * sending script code to the robot * many dashboard functionalities such as * restarting the robot after protective / EM-Stop * powering on the robot and do brake release * loading and starting programs * the set_mode action, as it uses the dashboard calls mentioned above

Headless mode

Inside this driver, there's the headless mode, which can be either enabled or not. When the headless mode is activated, required script code for external control will be sent to the robot directly when the driver starts. As soon as other script code is sent to the robot either by sending it directly through this driver or by pressing any motion-related button on the teach pendant, the script will be overwritten by this action and has to be restarted by using the resend_robot_program service. If this is necessary, you will see the output Connection to robot dropped, waiting for new connection. from the driver. Note that pressing "play" on the TP won't start the external control again, but whatever program is currently loaded on the controller. This mode doesn't require the "External Control" URCap being installed on the robot as the program is sent to the robot directly. However, we recommend to use the non-headless mode and leverage the set_mode action to start program execution without the teach pendant. The headless mode might be removed in future releases.

Note for the e-Series: In order to leverage the headless mode on the e-Series the robot must be in remote_control_mode as explained above.

controller_stopper

A small helper node that stops and restarts ROS controllers based on a boolean status topic. When the status goes to false, all running controllers except a set of predefined consistent_controllers gets stopped. If status returns to true the stopped controllers are restarted. This is done by Subscribing to a robot's running state topic. Ideally this topic is latched and only publishes on changes. However, this node only reacts on state changes, so a state published each cycle would also be fine.

CHANGELOG

2.1.2 (2022-07-27)

  • Silence a compilation warning (#425) (#427)
  • Fix dependencies for galactic (#392)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner, Robert Wilbrandt

2.1.1 (2022-05-05)

2.1.0 (2022-05-03)

  • Updated package maintainers (#360)
  • Add resource files from ROS World. (#226)
  • Add sphinx documentation (#340)
  • Update license to BSD-3-Clause (#277)
  • Update ROS_INTERFACE.md to current driver (#335)
  • Fix hardware interface names in error output (#329)
  • Added controller stopper node (#309)
  • Correct link to calibration extraction (#310)
  • Start the tool communication script if the flag is set (#267)
  • Change driver constructor and change calibration check (#282)
  • Use GPIO tag from URDF in driver. (#224)
  • Separate control node (#281)
  • Add missing dependency on angles and update formatting for linters. (#283)
  • Do not print an error output if writing is not possible (#266)
  • Update features.md (#250)
  • Tool communication (#218)
  • Payload service (#238)
  • Import transformation of force-torque into tcp frame from ROS1 driver (https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS_Driver/blob/master/ur_robot_driver/src/hardware_interface.cpp). (#237)
  • Make reading and writing work when hardware is disconnected (#233)
  • Add missing command and state interfaces to get everything working with the fake hardware and add some comment into xacro file to be clearer. (#221)
  • Decrease the rate of async tasks. (#223)
  • Change robot type. (#220)
  • Driver to headless. (#217)
  • Test execution tests (#216)
  • Integration tests improvement (#206)
  • Set start modes to empty. Avoid position ctrl loop on start. (#211)
  • Add resend program service and enable headless mode (#198)
  • Implement \"choices\" for robot_type param (#204)
  • Calibration extraction package (#186)
  • Add breaking api changes from ros2_control to hardware_interface (#189)
  • Fix prepare and perform switch operation (#191)
  • Update CI configuration to support galactic and rolling (#142)
  • Dockerize ursim with driver in docker compose (#144)
  • Enabling velocity mode (#146)
  • Moved registering publisher and service to on_active (#151)
  • Converted io_test and switch_on_test to ROS2 (#124)
  • Added loghandler to handle log messages from the Client Library with ... (#126)
  • Removed dashboard client from hardware interface
  • [WIP] Updated feature list (#102)
  • Moved Async check out of script running check (#112)
  • Fix gpio controller (#103)
  • Fixed speed slider service call (#100)
  • Adding missing backslash and only setting workdir once (#108)
  • Added dockerfile for the driver (#105)
  • Using official Universal Robot Client Library (#101)
  • Reintegrating missing ur_client_library dependency since the break the building process (#97)
  • Fix readme hardware setup (#91)
  • Fix move to home bug (#92)
  • Using modern python
  • Some intermediate commit
  • Remove obsolete and unused files and packages. (#80)
  • Review CI by correcting the configurations (#71)
  • Add support for gpios, update MoveIt and ros2_control launching (#66)
  • Quickfix against move home bug
  • Added missing initialization
  • Use GitHub Actions, use pre-commit formatting (#56)
  • Put dashboard services into corresponding namespace
  • Start dashboard client from within the hardware interface
  • Added try catch blocks for service calls
  • Removed repeated declaration of timeout parameter which lead to connection crash
  • Removed static service name in which all auto generated services where mapped
  • Removed unused variable
  • Fixed clang-format issue
  • Removed all robot status stuff
  • Exchanged hardcoded value for RobotState msgs enum
  • Removed currently unused controller state variables
  • Added placeholder for industrial_robot_status_interface
  • Fixed clang issues
  • Added checks for internal robot state machine
  • Only load speed scaling interface
  • Changed state interface to combined speed scaling factor
  • Added missing formatting in hardware interface
  • Initial version of the speed_scaling_state_controller
  • Fix clang tidy in multiple pkgs.
  • Clang tidy fix.
  • Update force torque state controller.
  • Prepare for testing.
  • Fix decision breaker for position control. Make decision effect instantaneous.
  • Use only position interface.
  • Update hardware interface for ROS2 (#8)
  • Update the dashboard client for ROS2 (#5)
  • Hardware interface framework (#3)
  • Add XML schema to all package.xml files
  • Silence ament_lint_cmake errors
  • Update packaging for ROS2
  • Update package.xml files so ros2 pkg list shows all pkgs
  • Clean out ur_robot_driver for initial ROS2 compilation
  • Compile ur_dashboard_msgs for ROS2
  • Delete all launch/config files with no UR5 relation
  • Initial work toward compiling ur_robot_driver
  • Update CMakeLists and package.xml for:
    • ur5_moveit_config
    • ur_bringup
    • ur_description
  • Change pkg versions to 0.0.0
  • Contributors: AndyZe, Denis Stogl, Denis

Wiki Tutorials

See ROS Wiki Tutorials for more details.

Source Tutorials

Not currently indexed.

Launch files

No launch files found

Messages

No message files found.

Services

No service files found

Plugins

No plugins found.

Recent questions tagged ur_robot_driver at Robotics Stack Exchange

Package Summary

Tags No category tags.
Version 2.0.2
License Apache License 2.0
Build type AMENT_CMAKE
Use RECOMMENDED

Repository Summary

Checkout URI https://github.com/UniversalRobots/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver.git
VCS Type git
VCS Version foxy
Last Updated 2023-04-17
Dev Status DEVELOPED
CI status No Continuous Integration
Released RELEASED
Tags No category tags.
Contributing Help Wanted (0)
Good First Issues (0)
Pull Requests to Review (0)

Package Description

The new driver for Universal Robots UR3, UR5 and UR10 robots with CB3 controllers and the e-series.

Additional Links

Maintainers

  • Marvin Große Besselmann
  • Lovro Ivanov
  • Denis Stogl
  • Andy Zelenak

Authors

  • Thomas Timm Andersen
  • Simon Rasmussen
  • Felix Exner
  • Lea Steffen
  • Tristan Schnell

ur_robot_driver

This package contains the actual driver for UR robots. It is part of the universal_robots_driver repository and requires other packages from that repository. Also, see the main repository's README for information on how to install and startup this driver.

ROS-API

The ROS API is documented in a standalone document. It is auto-generated using catkin_doc.

Technical details

The following image shows a very coarse overview of the driver's architecture.

Architecture overview

Upon connection to the primary interface the robot sends version and calibration information which is consumed by the calibration_check. If the calibration reported by the robot doesn't match the one configured (See calibration guide) an error will be printed to Roslog.

Real-time data from the robot is read through the RTDE interface. This is done automatically as soon as a connection to the robot could be established. Thus joint states and IO data will be immediately available.

To actually control the robot, a program node from the External Control URCap must be running on the robot interpreting commands sent from an external source. When this program is not running, no controllers moving the robot around will be available, which is handled by the controller_stopper. Please see the initial setup guide on how to install and start this on the robot.

The URScript that will be running on the robot is requested by the External Control program node from the remote ROS PC. The robot ur_control.launch file has a parameter called urscript_file to select a different program than the default one that will be sent as a response to a program request.

Custom script snippets can be sent to the robot on a topic basis. By default, they will interrupt other programs (such as the one controlling the robot). For a certain subset of functions, it is however possible to send them as secondary programs. See UR documentation on details.
Note to e-Series users: The robot won't accept script code from a remote source unless the robot is put into remote_control-mode. However, if put into remote_control-mode, the program containing the External Control program node can't be started from the panel. For this purpose, please use the dashboard services to load, start and stop the main program running on the robot. See the ROS-API documentation for details on the dashboard services.

For using the tool communication interface on e-Series robots, a socat script is prepared to forward the robot's tool communication interface to a local device on the ROS PC. See the tool communication setup guide for details.

This driver is using ROS-Control for any control statements. Therefore, it can be used with all position-based controllers available in ROS-Control. However, we recommend using the controllers from the ur_controllers package. See it's documentation for details. Note: Speed scaling support will only be available using the controllers from ur_controllers

A note about modes

The term mode is used in different meanings inside this driver.

Remote control mode

On the e-series the robot itself can operate in different command modes: It can be either in local control mode where the teach pendant is the single point of command or in remote control mode, where motions from the TP, starting & loading programs from the TP activating the freedrive mode are blocked. Note that the remote control mode has to be explicitly enabled in the robot's settings under Settings -> System -> Remote Control. See the robot's manual for details.

The remote control mode is needed for many aspects of this driver such as * headless mode (see below) * sending script code to the robot * many dashboard functionalities such as * restarting the robot after protective / EM-Stop * powering on the robot and do brake release * loading and starting programs * the set_mode action, as it uses the dashboard calls mentioned above

Headless mode

Inside this driver, there's the headless mode, which can be either enabled or not. When the headless mode is activated, required script code for external control will be sent to the robot directly when the driver starts. As soon as other script code is sent to the robot either by sending it directly through this driver or by pressing any motion-related button on the teach pendant, the script will be overwritten by this action and has to be restarted by using the resend_robot_program service. If this is necessary, you will see the output Connection to robot dropped, waiting for new connection. from the driver. Note that pressing "play" on the TP won't start the external control again, but whatever program is currently loaded on the controller. This mode doesn't require the "External Control" URCap being installed on the robot as the program is sent to the robot directly. However, we recommend to use the non-headless mode and leverage the set_mode action to start program execution without the teach pendant. The headless mode might be removed in future releases.

Note for the e-Series: In order to leverage the headless mode on the e-Series the robot must be in remote_control_mode as explained above.

controller_stopper

A small helper node that stops and restarts ROS controllers based on a boolean status topic. When the status goes to false, all running controllers except a set of predefined consistent_controllers gets stopped. If status returns to true the stopped controllers are restarted. This is done by Subscribing to a robot's running state topic. Ideally this topic is latched and only publishes on changes. However, this node only reacts on state changes, so a state published each cycle would also be fine.

CHANGELOG

2.0.2 (2022-12-07)

2.0.1 (2022-08-01)

  • added ur_bringup to test_depend of ur_robot_driver (#454)
  • Contributors: Felix Exner

2.0.0 (2022-06-20)

  • Updated package dependencies (#399)
  • Foxy controller stopper (#324)
  • Backport: Change driver constructor and change calibration check (#282) (#302)
  • Moved registering publisher and service to on_active (#151)
  • Converted io_test and switch_on_test to ROS2 (#124)
  • Added loghandler to handle log messages from the Client Library with ... (#126)
  • Removed dashboard client from hardware interface
  • [WIP] Updated feature list (#102)
  • Moved Async check out of script running check (#112)
  • Fix gpio controller (#103)
  • Fixed speed slider service call (#100)
  • Adding missing backslash and only setting workdir once (#108)
  • Added dockerfile for the driver (#105)
  • Using official Universal Robot Client Library (#101)
  • Reintegrating missing ur_client_library dependency since the break the building process (#97)
  • Fix readme hardware setup (#91)
  • Fix move to home bug (#92)
  • Using modern python
  • Some intermediate commit
  • Remove obsolete and unused files and packages. (#80)
  • Review CI by correcting the configurations (#71)
  • Add support for gpios, update MoveIt and ros2_control launching (#66)
  • Quickfix against move home bug
  • Added missing initialization
  • Use GitHub Actions, use pre-commit formatting (#56)
  • Put dashboard services into corresponding namespace
  • Start dashboard client from within the hardware interface
  • Added try catch blocks for service calls
  • Removed repeated declaration of timeout parameter which lead to connection crash
  • Removed static service name in which all auto generated services where mapped
  • Removed unused variable
  • Fixed clang-format issue
  • Removed all robot status stuff
  • Exchanged hardcoded value for RobotState msgs enum
  • Removed currently unused controller state variables
  • Added placeholder for industrial_robot_status_interface
  • Fixed clang issues
  • Added checks for internal robot state machine
  • Only load speed scaling interface
  • Changed state interface to combined speed scaling factor
  • Added missing formatting in hardware interface
  • Initial version of the speed_scaling_state_controller Controller is base on the current joint_state_controller of ros2 control
  • Fix clang tidy in multiple pkgs.
  • Clang tidy fix.
  • Update force torque state controller.
  • Prepare for testing.
  • Fix decision breaker for position control. Make decision effect instantaneous.
  • Use only position interface.
  • Update hardware interface for ROS2 (#8)
  • Update the dashboard client for ROS2 (#5)
  • Hardware interface framework (#3)
  • Add XML schema to all package.xml files Better enable ament_xmllint to check validity.
  • Silence ament_lint_cmake errors
  • Update packaging for ROS2
  • Update package.xml files so ros2 pkg list shows all pkgs
  • Clean out ur_robot_driver for initial ROS2 compilation
  • Compile ur_dashboard_msgs for ROS2
  • Delete all launch/config files with no UR5 relation
  • Initial work toward compiling ur_robot_driver
  • Update CMakeLists and package.xml for:
    • ur5_moveit_config
    • ur_bringup
    • ur_description
  • Change pkg versions to 0.0.0
  • Contributors: AndyZe, Denis Stogl, Denis

Wiki Tutorials

See ROS Wiki Tutorials for more details.

Source Tutorials

Not currently indexed.

Launch files

No launch files found

Messages

No message files found.

Services

No service files found

Plugins

No plugins found.

Recent questions tagged ur_robot_driver at Robotics Stack Exchange