Custom Manipulator Simulation in Gazebo and Motion Planning with MoveIt!

State-of-the-art robotics applications require tedious testing beforehand. As we all know now, simulations provide great value for the rapid prototyping that facilitate testing process in its entirety. In this reading, I will focus on simulating a custom manipulator from various aspects, although the header suggests a narrower perspective.

Machine Specifications

I find it useful to specify my hardware and software configurations (if any) at the beginning. I use:

My robot name is er75, which is why it is specified as the namespace. One can use any name as long as the namespace is respected universally throughout the MoveIt! universe— don’t be scared, there are only few more files to change. After this adjustment, MoveIt! becomes aware of the specific controller it is going to use.

Explicit separation of Gazebo and MoveIt! launch mechanics

Above problem was a real pain in the neck for me, since it took at least two hours to diagnose. During this time-span I have tried even the silliest methods to figure out what was the problem at all. After finding the problem, solving it is indeed trivial by increasing the number of launch files to two. I’m saying that:

Troubleshooting

Above-mentioned drift would consequently result in an Invalid Trajectory: start point deviates from current robot state more than … error. Unfortunately I have not yet found its solution and would love to hear about any comments and suggestions on that.

Conclusion

MoveIt! is a great tool for Perception & Motion Planning on robots. Whenever I encounter a new robot, the very first idea in my mind is usually “Let’s connect MoveIt!”. Despite my intimacy both with MoveIt! and Gazebo, I’ve always put off the Gazebo integration. At last I’ve dived into it and now I’m back on the surface with a meaty fish in my bare hands (of course there are tiny issues 😅). Hopefully this post provides a quick painkiller when the streamline method of MoveIt! go off the rails and does not work as expected. By the way, I’m not blaming MoveIt! team in any way regarding to this bonus feature since such an automation is really difficult due to high degree of uncertainties.

As always, if you have any comments or suggestions, you are greatly welcomed.

References

Related posts:

To setup a simple redirect in PHP you will need to create a header() function. Simply create a index.php file in the location you want to redirect from with the following line of code: When linking…

AWS or amazon web services is a subsidiary created by Amazon itself for helping the tech companies, developers by providing lots of cloud computing, data storing, data warehouse to handle a large…

I had the record first. First I tell you! By many months, and considering when people finally found out how great it was — by many many years. And it played a role. It was at the very core of one of…