[ros-users] Moveit! Getting the different pieces to work together

Sudarshan Srinivasan sudarshan85 at gmail.com
Mon Oct 14 11:15:31 UTC 2013


Hey all,

I am trying to get Moveit! working on the Meka robot. I have read most of
the documentation and have a fairly decent idea of the different pieces
involving Moveit! I think I have all the pieces required to get it work,
however, I am having some trouble in making them work together. I am hoping
this disscussion will not only help me but also other users who are in the
same boat trying to get Moveit! to work with their robot.

Originally, I had asked a question about Moveit on answers.ros.org which
you can find here<http://answers.ros.org/question/84806/using-moveit-to-actually-control-a-robot/>
.  I have completed the Moveit! quickstart tutorial including the RViz one
where I can set a random goal state for a group and provided the path to
the goal is not colliding with anything, the simulation runs. Up until this
point, I did not have a FollowJointTrajectoryAction server running, have a
contollers.yaml file or running anything on the real robot.

Currently, my setup is: roscore is running on the computer that talks to
the robot and I run Moveit! (using the command on the RViz tutorial
demo.launch) on my computer while connecting to the remote roscore. Moveit!
and RViz at this stage can read /joint_states and I can see the current
state of the arms/torso etc on the model.

Based on the universal robot (UR5) action server
ur5_driver.py<https://raw.github.com/ros-industrial/universal_robot/groovy-devel/ur_driver/src/ur_driver/driver.py>
and
the associated client
test_client.py<https://raw.github.com/ros-industrial/universal_robot/groovy-devel/ur_driver/test_move.py>
for
Moveit!, I started writing a very simple FollowJointTrajectoryAction server
along with a very simple client to test it.

My code can be found here:* meka_action_server.py<http://pastebin.com/gA5QM0Gb>
 and test_client.py <http://pastebin.com/nLXwaLEk>.*

When I launch Moveit! using the RViz launch file, I get error saying that
it was unable to connect to the action server:

> [ERROR] [1381437382.200345290]: Unable to connect to action server within allotted time
>
> even though I was running meka_action_server.py. However, when I do:

$ rostopic list | grep
follow/follow_joint_trajectory/cancel/follow_joint_trajectory/feedback/follow_joint_trajectory/goal/follow_joint_trajectory/result/follow_joint_trajectory/status
>
> I get all the topics that Moveit! is presumably looking for. In order to
test my server I ran the test_client.py which was written based on the
tutorials and the UR5 test and it didn't really give me anything. I will
also include my controllers.yaml <http://pastebin.com/dQP0jNuJ>,
meka_moveit_controller_manager.launch <http://pastebin.com/9DpdFV8X>, and
moveit_planning_execution.launch <http://pastebin.com/6ZfK0U7y> for
completion.

My questions:

   1. Why is my test_client and Moveit not able to talk/connect to my
   FollowJointTrajectoryAction action server and how can I fix this problem?
   2. I can't use the pr2_moveit_controller_manager and have to use the
   moveit_simple_controller_manager. Going by
this<http://answers.ros.org/question/71824/gazebo-and-moveit-moveitsimplecontrollermanager-and-sending-joint-trajectory-messages/>
post,
   the moveit_simple_controller_manager requires an action server. How do I
   get the moveit_simple_controller_manager and my action server to work
   together?

Like I said in the begining, I think I have all the pieces to make Moveit!
plan a trajectory and receive it in the action server. Please let me know
if I need to do anything in that regard. I would just like some help in
getting them to work together. Essentially, I would like to receive the
joint angles/velocity etc that Moveit! calculates and just print them onto
the screen, because going from there to the robot is trivial.

Thanks for reading and your help is greatly appreciated. Please let me know
if you need anymore information.

Thanks,

Sudarshan.
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