net-ft-ros

ROS package for the ATI 6-axis force torque sensor.

Hardware setup

TODO: description of the ATI setup, with ATI box, how to connect to ethernet and ping the box.

Once you have connected the ATI box with an ethernet and power supply cable, check the network connection. From your PC try and ping the FT sensor.

$ ping 128.178.145.98

If you can ping the FT sensor then you are ready to use it. You can also put the ip into your web-brower and (if you could ping it) you should be able to see a webpage which shows the status of the FT. Normaly the status should be: Healthy.

Launch

$ roslaunch netft_rdt_driver ft_sensor.launch 

The force-torque information will be published on the topic: /ft_sensor/netft_data. The message type is geometry_msgs/WrenchStamped.

rostopic echo /ft_sensor/netft_data


header: 
  seq: 9377
  stamp: 
    secs: 1454162697
    nsecs: 667636236
  frame_id: ''
wrench: 
  force: 
    x: -0.248077
    y: -1.12601
    z: -1.639932
  torque: 
    x: -0.106468
    y: -0.108128
    z: 0.22924

There are four arguments the node takes, see the launch file for more details.

• ROS service

 rosservice call /ft_sensor/bias_cmd "cmd: 'bias'"

To call the service in C++ code make sure to include the service message type:

#include "netft_rdt_driver/String_cmd.h"
...
ros::ServiceClient ft_client = nh.serviceClient<netft_rdt_driver::String_cmd>("/ft_sensor/bias_cmd");
netft_rdt_driver::String_cmd srv;
srv.request.cmd  = "bias";
srv.response.res = "";
f (ft_client.call(srv))
{
  ROS_INFO_STREAM("net_ft res: " << srv.response.res);
}else{
  ROS_ERROR("Failed to call netft bias service");
}

• rqt_plot You can visualise the force-torque sensor topic with the rqt perspective. In the launch file run the script rqt script:

./launch_rqt.sh

• Rviz Add a Wrench message type in Rviz and make sure it is subscribing to the appropriate ros message, namely /ft_sensor/netft_data

‼️ The node publishes force-torque data in a left-handed system (LHS).