I have been looking at ROS and ROSI with the intention of using a Universal Robot (UR5) and ROS in a commercial application.
I have a fresh Ubuntu Xenial 16.04.05 install with ROS Kinetic.
I have been reading "ROS Programming : Building Powerful Robots master" and other publications as well as the other material and the online documentation.
My first target was to control a simulated UR5 using the MoveIt, Gazebo, RViz and my test application using the Moveit C++ API.
I have had quite a painful ride but I understand the ROS framework now but drivers and compatibility seem to be giving me issues.
My current implementation fails when I try to execute move(), a known problem.
I have 2 questions :
(1) UR5 and ROS
The universal robot package (http://wiki.ros.org/universal_robot) is shown as experimental and use in production systems not recommended.
This greatly concerns me as a non starter, we have this powerful framework available but experimental drivers?
Is this assertion reasonable or is this driver package really not suitable for production?
Am I missing something or are universal robots not considered for production systems?
Before I put in more effort, I wanted to confirm the suitability of my configuration?
(2) Outdated drivers
I believe the universal_robot ur_driver is the cause of my issues, and is no longer recommended. It seems ur_modern_driver is recommended (https://answers.ros.org/question/254575/universal_robot-package-for-ros-kinetic/.
The ur_modern_driver adds ros_control required for move() support when simulated.
Why has the ur_modern_driver not replaced the ur_driver?
Surely everyone will fall at the first hurdle and have to find the above thread?
Thanks
Tim
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