KDR_Final_Project

This repository hosts the code for completing Part 3 of the final project for 535.630 Kinematics & Dynamics for Robots. It is designed to guide you through the UR5 robot visualization in ROS2 using the trajectory you generated.

• Author: Jeremy Zhang

prerequisites

Before you download this repository to your local disk, make sure your computer meets the requirements. Here is the checklist you may want to go through:

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04
• ROS 2 Galactic
• Universal Robot ROS2 Driver
• Git

You can go to any section if you find your computer doesn't satisfy that requirement.

1. Operating System (OS): Ubuntu 20.04 + ROS 2 Galactic

For dual-booting your machine and install ROS 2, please refer to the ROS2 installation guide uploaded on Canvas.

2. Universal Robot ROS2 Driver

Open a new terminal and type in the command:

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

Update the packages

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Then install the UR robot driver using its debian package

sudo apt-get install ros-galactic-ur-robot-driver

3. Git

Git is a very important tool for code management, to install git, simply open a new terminal and type in:

Update the packages

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

Install git from debian package

sudo apt-get install git-all

Download this package

Open a new terminal

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

Create a new folder for this project:

mkdir -p ~/kdr_workspace/src

Get into the folder you just created:

cd ~/kdr_workspace/src

Clone this repository to the directory you are in:

git clone https://github.com/jmz3/KDR_Final_Project.git

If you cannot use git clone, alternatively download the zip file is OK. But you need to unzip the file and put the contents into ~/kdr_workspace/src

After this step, your directory structure should be like:

~/kdr_workspace
└── src
    ├── matab
    │   ├── tf_frame.m
    │   ├── ur5_interface.m
    │   └── ur5_move_ros2.m
    ├── README.md
    └── ur5_kdr
        ├── CMakeLists.txt
        ├── launch
        │   ├── ur5_interface.launch.py
        │   └── ur5_simulation.launch.py
        ├── package.xml
        ├── rviz
        │   └── view_robot.rviz
        └── src
            └── frame_publisher.cpp

If you structure is not the same as I'm showing here, put the corresponding file into the right position. Do not proceed to the next step until you have the correct arrangement of the codes.

Usage

To have the simulation running, you need to have a new terminal:

cd ~/kdr_workspace

and upload all the environment variables

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

Build the package

colcon build

Source the local environment variables

source install/setup.bash

Then launch the ur5 simulation

ros2 launch ur5_kdr ur5_simulation.launch.py 

After you launch this python script, you will see a UR5 lying down on the ground:

Now you can open your Matlab in the same directory and navigate to ~/kdr_workspace/src/matlab and run the program ur5_move_ros2.m. The robot should move to a new configuration as commanded.

For Clarity

ROS using a thing called TOPIC to transfer messages between everything, you can open a new terminal and setup the environment

source /opt/ros/galactic/setup.bash

And if you type in the following command, you will find you can see the commands you send from MATLAB are shown here

ros2 topic echo /joint_trajectory_controller/joint_trajectory

The robot simply "listens" to this topic and do whatever it receives from this topic