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    Dexter Ong
    Jan 31
      ·  Edited: Jan 31

    AR3 with ROS and MoveIt

    Hi all,


    I would like to share my work on integrating the AR3 with ROS and MoveIt. I've released a baseline version of my code with the necessary packages to get you started with controlling your own arm. I hope that it will be helpful for those looking to explore ROS and MoveIt.


    The project is available at: https://github.com/ongdexter/ar3_core



    I have implemented a joint position trajectory controller in the ros_control framework coupled with a simple position control on the Teensy. Tracking trajectories generated by MoveIt enables more complex behaviours like moving around obstacles.


    I have included a basic implementation of the move group API which should be sufficient for simple tasks. However, I don't intend to develop a full GUI for teaching tasks as that falls outside of my intended use case and especially since Chris has already developed a very efficient tool for that in ARCS.


    Everything is in C++, though the MoveIt Commander Python scripting interface can used to interface with the core software. I'll likely use it for a simple jogging tool, for instance.


    You may have also noticed from the video that I've made some changes to the encoders as well. I've shifted the J2 and J5 encoders to the joints to ensure correspondence between the actual joint position and the model in MoveIt for motion planning. I'll detail those changes in a separate thread.


    I intend to explore some vision-based planning and I'll be happy share my progress. I hope that some will find my work useful and I welcome any suggestions and contributions.


    Cheers, Dexter

    6 comments
    Kstan Simit
    Jan 31

    well done dexter and hope to see your new update.

    raykimber
    Feb 9

    Hi, Dexter, thanks for doing this development and making it available to us. I recently completed my AR3 build and I wanted to explore using ROS/MoveIt to control it. I have a Windows 10 PC, and I am new to ROS, MoveIt, Linux. In your Git repository you provide detailed instructions for installing ROS and MoveIt directly on Windows, but I didn't see anything on installing Gazebo. From what I've read on the Web installing Gazebo directly on Windows is possible by building it in Visual Studio, but is pretty complex and people have reported various errors in the process. Are you running Gazebo on windows, or are you running it on Linux? And if on Windows, did you have any problems? Can you share any tips? If on Linux (Ubuntu), do ROS/MoveIt and Gazebo talk to each other easily?


    Thanks, Ray Kimber

    0
    Dexter Ong
    Feb 10

    Hi Ray, Gazebo is actually packaged in the ROS binaries for both Windows and Linux, so you do not need to build or install it separately. The ROS Melodic versions are quite stable so you should have no issues running them together on either operating system.

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    Alex Manusovich
    Feb 14

    Great work Dexter. Please keep us posted about your progress

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    Alex Manusovich
    Feb 20

    Here is my AR3 with ROS modules from Dexter. Works better than anything I tried. Thank you again for your work Dexter. BTW I used your "clean" version of AR3 source teensy sketch. Had to make a few modifications around configuration and limit switches since I am using Teensy 4.1 and one of my limit switches is magnetic sensor with analog output.


    Dexter Ong
    Feb 20

    Very nice! Glad that you were able to get it up and running!

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