Hello,

Well, firstly, welcome to ROS!!

I believe the links below will help you fulfill your task:

http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Install/Gazebo_and_ROS

http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.9/Overview_of_new_ROS_integration
(follow the tutorials)

http://wiki.ros.org/ros_control

Also, take a look at my implementation of a ROS driver to Nao (nao_dcm
<https://github.com/costashatz/nao_dcm>), where I am using ros controllers
(and controller manager) alongside with Gazebo. If you need more
clarifications, feel free to send me an email.

Although, I didn't understand completely what you mean a plugin that
manipulates the actuators.

Best,
Konstantinos Chatzilygeroudis


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Kefei Zeng <kefei.zeng@mail.utoronto.ca>
wrote:

>   Hello, everybody. I've only started to use ROS last week as part of my
> internship. I'm using Gazebo 2.2.2 in conjunction with ROS Indigo and
> Ubuntu 14.04 'Trusty'. I was tasked to research a way to write a simple
> plugin that could control a robot. I was told that I should aim for a
> plugin that causes the robot to move by actually controlling its actuator
> motor and not simply moving the model's joints. I've searched a ways to
> write a plugin for manipulating the acutator, but no luck with a specific
> example yet.
>
>  Here's what I know so far:
> The stack ros_control has something to do with using actuators and works
> best with URDF.
> URDF files have the <actuator> tag.
>  None of the default models included in Gazebo have actuators, only
> joints.
> The gazebosim.org tutorial page does not contain instructions for writing
> plugins for actuators, only world, system, model, and sensors.
>
>  What I don't know:
> Can I use actuators in an .sdf file?
> What does ros_controller (NOT ros_control) actually do? The ROS wiki has
> little information on this stack.
> Is it true that it's better to use URDF rather than SDF for actuators?
> Especially since the tutorial on the Gazebo wiki specifies the use of URDF.
>  *What exactly is the format of an actuator configuration file (if it's
> possible)?*
> *Is it actually possible to write a plugin that manipulates the actuators
> instead of the model itself or the joints?*
>
>  Any help would be greatly appreciated. If anyone needs clarification on
> some of the things I said, feel free to ask. I'll do my best to make things
> clear.
>
>
>
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