Prequisities

• Tested on ROS KINETIC AND INDIGO
• Required Packages:

sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-gazebo-ros-pkg
sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-gazebo-ros-control
sudo apt-get install ros-kinetic-moveit

Installation

• mkdir kuka_arm
• cd kuka_arm
• mkdir src
• cd src
• git clone git@github.com:CesMak/kuka_arm.git
• cd ..
• catkin init
• catkin build
• source devel/setup.bash
• roslaunch kuka_manipulator_description test_kr5.launch

Bring up in RVIZ and change joints

roslaunch kr5_description start_kr5_description_rviz.launch

Moveit

• Connect Gazebo Simulation to MoveIt

roslaunch kuka_kr5_gazebo rviz_connected_with_gz_using_moveit.launch

Visualize in Gazebo

• This file is using the ros_control package and uses Position controllers

roslaunch kuka_kr5_gazebo gz_connected_with_rviz.launch

Send a command to gazebo

rostopic pub /kuka/link_1_controller/command std_msgs/Float64 "data: 0.5"

Try also this:

rostopic pub /kuka/control_command geometry_msg/Point "x: 1.0 y: 0.0   z: 0.0"

rostopic pub /kuka/control_command geometry_msg/Point "x: 2.0 y: 0.0   z: 0.0"

Controller

A PID Controller and a State Space Controller is implemented. To activate the PID or the state space controller please see the kuka_kr5_control/controller_node.yaml /controller_type value.

PID

Note that PID Control does not work, cause the Ball Joints cannot be influenced directly but indirectly by the plate.

State Space Controller

The scripts to get the control Matrix R and the Filter Matrix F can be found in kuka_kr5_conrol/scripts

Documentation of the Modelling and a precise description can be found at:

Sources

For more information about this KUKA KR5 Robot out of the ros_industrial package see:

https://github.com/ros-industrial/kuka_experimental/tree/indigo-devel/kuka_kr5_support

Also in terms of licenses etc. please refer to the above website.

Problems

• Endeffector is trembling a lot in gazebo see the discussion on ros.answers
• For DH-Table of this kuka_kr5_robot please check out kuka_experimental_issue

Links to other ROS-arm-manipulators:

• https://github.com/sinaiaranda-CIDESI/motoman_mh6-10
• https://github.com/orsalmon/kuka_manipulator_gazebo
• Connect Robot to MoveIt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6bBxfD_bYs&t=638s