MoveIt Setup Assistant

This documentation explains how to run the MoveIt Setup Assistant to update the robot's SRDF (Semantic Robot Description Format) file. The MoveIt Setup Assistant is a powerful tool that helps configure and customize your robot's MoveIt package for motion planning. It allows you to define key components of your robot, such as joints, links, and sensors, and set up planners and controllers.

You should run this tool whenever there are changes to the robot hardware, such as adding new sensors like a camera or 3D LIDAR, or modifying existing components. By updating the SRDF and other configuration files, the Setup Assistant ensures that MoveIt can correctly interact with your robot's hardware and perform tasks like motion planning and manipulation effectively.

Requirements:

• Development Computer (Acer Laptop)

1. Backup relevant packages

Note that this step might be optional, as the development computer already has the latest backup of the robot. It is recommended you still proceed upon reading this section.

Before any changes take place, it is recommended to backup the packages tiago_description and pmb2_description inside the robot. Using the development computer, please access the robot via sftp. It should be already configured in the development computer. When copying these packages, please copy them to the tiago_ws workspace.

2. Running MoveIt Setup Assistant

Using the development computer, run:

roslaunch moveit_setup_assistant setup_assistant.launch

and you should get the following window:

Please proceed by creating a new MoveIt configuration file. Please load the following xacro file:

/home/pal/tiago_ws/src/tiago_robot/tiago_description/robots/tiago.urdf.xacro

with the following optional arguments:

wrist_model:="wrist-2017" end_effector:='robotiq-2f-140' ft_sensor:='false' laser_model:='hokuyo'

Note: Upon loading the tiago.urdf.xacro, you can comment out the par_urdf_utils package if not found.

Continue by automatically generating the collision matrix in the Self-Collisions tab, and by manually editing the other configurations in the Virtual Joints, Planning Groups, Robot Poses, End Effectors, and Passive Joints tabs. Please use the existing SRDF (tiago.urdf.xacro) in

/home/pal/tiago_ws/src/tiago_robot/tiago_description/robots/tiago.urdf.xacro

as a guide for the configurations ahead.

The images below should work as a configuration reference:

At the end, please save the package as tiagocustom_moveit_config in tiago_ws as shown below:

3. Move the new xacro file to the robot

The new xacro should now be moved to the robot using sudo permissions. It is recommended to use scp. Please use the following commands to access the robot, enter sudo mode, and copy the file. Please note that the file should also be renamed to tiago_robotiq_2f-140.srdf:

# Access the robot via development computer
tiago_lan
# Sudo permissions
sudo su
rw
chroot /ro
# Access correct directory
cd /opt/pal/ferrum/share/tiago_moveit_config/config/srdf
# Copy the file via scp (use 192.168.1.103 depending on the laptop ip)
scp [email protected]:/home/pal/tiago_ws/src/tiagocustom_moveit_config/config/tiago.srdf .
rm tiago_robotiq_2f-140.srdf
# Rename the file
mv tiago.srdf tiago_robotiq_2f-140.srdf

4. Restart the robot

After restarting the robot, ensure that everything is functioning properly. It is recommended to review the manipulation nodes' logs via WebCommander and test a few movements using MoveIt to verify that everything is working as expected.