MoveIt Control with HTC Vive

Preleminary

The VR control system is presented in the MCs thesis and consider refering the thesis if you found this work useful. The main file in this repository is moveit_controller.cpp.

Requirements

MoveIt installed from source and ros_controllers.
It has been tested for Melodic and Noetic.

Build using:

catkin_make -DPYTHON_EXECUTABLE=/usr/bin/python3

Overview

This package is used to control MoveIt move groups with HTC Vive. It is built primarily for bimanual robotics systems, but can easily be transferred for one-armed robots. The system is tested in simulation using the ROS packages panda_dual_gazebo and panda_dual_gazebo_moveit_config

How to use

To read the VR controller data please use the package vive_ros (modified). Note, the vive_ros package in my repository is a modified version of vive_ros. For a simple launch file of how to start the system, look at controller.launch.

To use the package run:

  <!-- TWO ARM EXAMPLE -->
  <!-- To alter this package to fit your robot, add parameters here -->
  <node name="moveit_controller" pkg="moveit_vive" type="moveit_controller" output="screen">
    <param name="right_controller_name" type="str" value="right"/>
    <param name="left_controller_name" type="str" value="left"/>
    <param name="robot_planning_group" type="str" value="dual"/>
    <param name="right_end_link_name" type="str" value="panda_1_link8"/>
    <param name="left_end_link_name" type="str" value="panda_2_link8"/>
    <param name="number_of_arms" type="int" value="2"/>  
  </node>

  <!-- ONE ARM EXAMPLE -->
  <!-- USE RIGHT WHEN INIT -->
  <!-- To alter this package to fit your robot, add parameters here -->
  <node name="moveit_controller" pkg="moveit_vive" type="moveit_controller" output="screen">
    <param name="right_controller_name" type="str" value="right"/>
    <param name="robot_planning_group" type="str" value="dual"/>
    <param name="right_end_link_name" type="str" value="panda_1_link8"/>
    <param name="number_of_arms" type="int" value="1"/>  
  </node>

In order to control the gripper, the script gripper_control.py can be executed.

<node name="panda_<arm>_gripper" pkg="moveit_vive" type="gripper_control.py">
  <param name="controller_id" type="str" value="<arm>"/>
</node>

Quick test it works

In order for you to utalize the entire purpose of this package is that you have HTC-VIVE VR gear (and publishing messages using vive_ros (modified)). But what you can do before setting up the VR gear is:

1. (optional) Download panda_dual_gazebo and panda_dual_gazebo_moveit_config.
   (alternative) Use your own robot URDF setup with MoveIt.

2. Download MoveIt and build from source (use catkin_make when building).

3. Make sure the robot works with MoveIt and note:

• The name of your move_group
• End link name
• Name of controller

4. Download and build this package and update the controller.launch. See example above. Use the information you noted from step 3.

5. rosrun moveit_vive circle.py. This should make your robot move in a circular motion. If this works, your robot should be ready to go with the published messages from the vive_ros (modified).