This repository contains the ROS packages needed for the simulation of "Boxbot", a simple dual-armed robot consisting of two WidowX Robot Arms (Mark II) attached to a simple "torso". Included is a URDF model of the robot, along with corresponding ros-control, Gazebo, and MoveIt! interfaces.
This software was developed and tested in:
- Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
- ROS Noetic
- Gazebo 11.10.2
- MoveIt! for ROS Noetic
The new C++ driver (currently WIP) requires Libserial to create and use Serial Ports to interface with the ArbotixM boards.
This program requires the following packages for hardware drivers:
To install the current version of the repository to your machine, change directory into the desired catkin workspace source directory, and clone the repository. After this, build the code using catkin_make in the workspace directory.
To launch a model of the robot in RViz from the top level directory use:
roslaunch boxbot_description boxbot_rviz.launch five_dof:=BOOLEAN
where the BOOLEAN argument can be set as true to spawn the 5-DOF model or false to use the 6-DOF model. If the argument is left out, the default model is set as the 6-DOF model.
To launch the robot model in Gazebo with ROS controllers top level directory use:
roslaunch boxbot_bringup boxbot_sim.launch five_dof:=BOOLEAN
where the BOOLEAN argument can be set as true to spawn the 5-DOF model or false to use the 6-DOF model. If the argument is left out, the default model is set as the 6-DOF model.
If you want to edit the URDF model, only modify the files that end with .urdf.xacro or .gazebo, found in the boxbot_description/robots and boxbot_description/urdf folders. Generally, you will not want to edit the .urdf files directly, as they are auto-generated and are also harder to look through than the subcomponent .xacro files.
After you are done editing, you can regenerate the complete URDF model by switching into the boxbot_description package directory, and running the autogeneration script:
./regen_urdf.sh
- During initial testing of the physical Boxbot, we found that the first shoulder joint of the WidowX arm (joint_1) has problems holding up the weight of the arm, sporadically shutting down due to what appears to be overload (either torque or power). In response, we are currently redesigning the shoulder joint and power system to overcome this issue.
- Redesign of the physical arm with 6-DOF is still currently in progress.
- Currently in the progress of updating MoveIt! for both configurations. For the 6-DOF arrangment, the arms now use the TRAC-IK solver and seems to be working fine. The 5-DOF arm MoveIt! configuration is currently also using the TRAC-IK but there seems to be an some issues due to the limited number of DOF. The standard IK-Fast plugin for the Widowx arm (see original) is not working in ROS Melodic, due to what appears to be a deprication issue within ROS/MoveIt!. Still investigating this issue.
All new packages/files use the BSD 3-clause license presented in the main license file, and are Copyright (C) University of Cincinnati.
Exceptions include the entirety of boxbot_description/meshes and some of boxbot_description/urdf, which are based on files from Interbotix's widowx_arm repository. Copyright for these are held by others, as reflected in the commit history for the original files. All modifications are Copyright (C) University of Cincinnati