Robotic Arm Teleoperation in Gazebo

This repository provides simulation and teleoperation tools for controlling a robotic arm in Gazebo using keyboard input and ROS controllers.

Features

• Keyboard Control: Manual control of end-effector velocities.
• Velocity Mapping: Key-based directional velocity control.
• Inverse Kinematics: Joint velocities calculated using the Jacobian inverse.

Folder Structure

• arm_urdf: Contains the robot URDF files.
• moveit_pkg: MoveIt configuration for planning and control.
• teleop_arm: Teleoperation scripts.

How to use this repo

Prerequisites :

• Install Gazebo

  We will be launching our world in Gazebo so make sure to install it by using the command

  curl -sSL http://get.gazebosim.org | sh
  

• Install ROS dependencies

  Used in integrating Gazebo to ROS

  sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-gazebo-ros-pkgs
  

  Used for describing the properties and parts of the model

  sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-urdf ros-noetic-xacro
  

  Provides the necessary controller manager.

  sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-ros-control ros-<distro>-ros-controllers
  

  For motion planning

  sudo apt-get install ros-noetic-moveit
  

Note

All the installation commands are for rosdep noetic change noetic with <your_distro_name>

• Install ROS packages

  Make a workspace and create a directory 'src' where all the packages will be stored, clone this repo to get the packages and then build the catkin workspace.

  cd ~/robo_arm/src/
  git clone https://github.com/Team-Deimos-IIT-Mandi/Robotic_Arm.git
  cd ~/robo_arm && catkin_make
  

  Source your workspace in .bashrc file by running the following command so that you don't have to source it in every terminal

  echo "source ~/robo_arm/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
  

  Usage

  Launch Gazebo

  To start the Gazebo simulation:

  roslaunch moveit_pkg final.launch
  

  Run Teleoperation

  To control the robotic arm via keyboard:

  rosrun teleop_arm jaco_pt2.py
  

  Keyboard Controls

  • w - Move +X
  • x - Move -X
  • a - Move +Y
  • d - Move -Y
  • e - Move +Z
  • z - Move -Z

  Press Ctrl+C to exit.

Controllers

This project uses the following controllers:

• Plan Controller: Uses JointGroupPositionController for joint_0 to joint_3, enabling position control.
• Joint State Controller: Publishes joint states at 100 Hz.