Hello,

I apologise in advance, for I am very new to programming with ROS.

I have been trying to connect to a simulated ur5 through gazebo and control it in python using the moveit_commander interface.

After attempting to write a simple script for controlling the ur5 gazebo simulation using moveitcommander interface I'm receiving the following errors, firstly in the script terminal window and secondly in the terminal running the moveitplanning _execution node:

[ WARN] [1456503108.574669066, 548.823000000]: Joint values for monitored state are requested but the full state is not known
joint_state: 
  header: 
    seq: 0
    stamp: 
      secs: 0
      nsecs: 0
    frame_id: /world
  name: ['shoulder_pan_joint', 'shoulder_lift_joint', 'elbow_joint', 'wrist_1_joint', 'wrist_2_joint', 'wrist_3_joint']
  position: [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]
  velocity: []
  effort: []
multi_dof_joint_state: 
  header: 
    seq: 0
    stamp: 
      secs: 0
      nsecs: 0
    frame_id: /world
  joint_names: []
  transforms: []
  twist: []
  wrench: []
attached_collision_objects: []
is_diff: False
============
============ Generating plan 1
[ WARN] [1456503113.598260823, 551.508000000]: Fail: ABORTED: No motion plan found. No execution attempted.
============ Waiting while RVIZ displays plan1...
============ Visualizing plan1
============ Waiting while plan1 is visualized (again)...
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'class_loader::LibraryUnloadException'
  what():  Attempt to unload library that class_loader is unaware of.
Aborted (core dumped)

*

All is well! Everyone is happy! You can start planning now!

[ INFO] [1456502653.160737839, 126.273000000]: Planning request received for MoveGroup action. Forwarding to planning pipeline.
[ INFO] [1456502653.162058984, 126.273000000]: No planner specified. Using default.
[ INFO] [1456502653.162381392, 126.273000000]: RRTConnect: Starting planning with 1 states already in datastructure
[ERROR] [1456502658.169349483, 130.953000000]: RRTConnect: Unable to sample any valid states for goal tree
[ INFO] [1456502658.170807752, 130.957000000]: RRTConnect: Created 1 states (1 start + 0 goal)
[ INFO] [1456502658.171010925, 130.957000000]: No solution found after 5.008731 seconds
[ INFO] [1456502658.209078107, 130.983000000]: Unable to solve the planning problem
[ INFO] [1456502658.216058459, 130.990000000]: Received new trajectory execution service request...
[ WARN] [1456502658.216106023, 130.991000000]: The trajectory to execute is empty
[ INFO] [1456503008.235511782, 473.390000000]: Planning request received for MoveGroup action. Forwarding to planning pipeline.
[ INFO] [1456503008.235972587, 473.390000000]: No planner specified. Using default.
[ INFO] [1456503008.236136625, 473.390000000]: RRTConnect: Starting planning with 1 states already in datastructure
[ERROR] [1456503013.247658046, 477.166000000]: RRTConnect: Unable to sample any valid states for goal tree
[ INFO] [1456503013.249219738, 477.172000000]: RRTConnect: Created 1 states (1 start + 0 goal)
[ INFO] [1456503013.249677542, 477.172000000]: No solution found after 5.013654 seconds
[ INFO] [1456503013.253513681, 477.174000000]: Unable to solve the planning problem
[ INFO] [1456503013.260155299, 477.178000000]: Received new trajectory execution service request...
[ WARN] [1456503013.260188972, 477.179000000]: The trajectory to execute is empty
[ INFO] [1456503108.575331207, 548.823000000]: Planning request received for MoveGroup action. Forwarding to planning pipeline.
[ INFO] [1456503108.575958594, 548.823000000]: RRTConnect: Starting planning with 1 states already in datastructure
[ERROR] [1456503113.584912230, 551.502000000]: RRTConnect: Unable to sample any valid states for goal tree
[ INFO] [1456503113.587574652, 551.504000000]: RRTConnect: Created 1 states (1 start + 0 goal)
[ INFO] [1456503113.591495319, 551.505000000]: No solution found after 5.015622 seconds
[ INFO] [1456503113.596049476, 551.507000000]: Unable to solve the planning problem
[ INFO] [1456503113.599612790, 551.508000000]: Received new trajectory execution service request...
[ WARN] [1456503113.599910654, 551.508000000]: The trajectory to execute is empty
^C[move_group-1] killing on exit
shutting down processing monitor...
... shutting down processing monitor complete
done

The important parts of both of these consoles, I believe are

============ Generating plan 1
[ WARN] [1456503113.598260823, 551.508000000]: Fail: ABORTED: No motion plan found. No execution attempted.

and

[ERROR] [1456503113.584912230, 551.502000000]: RRTConnect: Unable to sample any valid states for goal tree

which are suggesting that something's not quite working with either setting the target trajectory/pose or generating the plan in my code??

Here is my code, which has basically been adjusted (perhaps not suitably) from the moveit_commander tutorial with the pr2 provided by moveit.

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys
import rospy
import moveit_commander
import moveit_msgs.msg
import geometry_msgs.msg

from std_msgs.msg import String

def test():

    ##initialize moveit_commander and rospy
    print "============ Starting test setup"
    moveit_commander.roscpp_initialize(sys.argv)
    rospy.init_node('test2', anonymous=True)


    ## Instantiate a RobotCommander object.  This object is an interface to
    ## the robot as a whole.
    robot = moveit_commander.RobotCommander()

    ## Instantiate a PlanningSceneInterface object.  This object is an interface
    ## to the world surrounding the robot.
    scene = moveit_commander.PlanningSceneInterface()

    ## Instantiate a MoveGroupCommander object.  This object is an interface
    ## to one group of joints.  In this case the group is the joints in the left
    ## arm.  This interface can be used to plan and execute motions on the left
    ## manipulator.
    group = moveit_commander.MoveGroupCommander("manipulator")


    ## We create this DisplayTrajectory publisher which is used below to publish
    ## trajectories for RVIZ to visualize.
    display_trajectory_publisher = rospy.Publisher(
                                      '/move_group/display_planned_path',
                                      moveit_msgs.msg.DisplayTrajectory, queue_size=10)

    ## Wait for RVIZ to initialize. This sleep is ONLY to allow Rviz to come up.
    print "============ Waiting for RVIZ..."
    rospy.sleep(10)
    print "============ Starting test "

    ## Getting Basic Information
    ## ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    ##
    ## We can get the name of the reference frame for this robot
    print "============ Reference frame: %s" % group.get_planning_frame()

    ## We can also print the name of the end-effector link for this group
    print "============ Reference frame: %s" % group.get_end_effector_link()

    ## We can get a list of all the groups in the robot
    print "============ Robot Groups:"
    print robot.get_group_names()

    ## Sometimes for debugging it is useful to print the entire state of the
    ## robot.
    print "============ Printing robot state"
    print robot.get_current_state()
    print "============"

    ## Planning to a Pose goal
    ## ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    ## We can plan a motion for this group to a desired pose for the 
    ## end-effector

    print "============ Generating plan 1"
    pose_target = geometry_msgs.msg.Pose()
    pose_target.orientation.w = 1.0
    pose_target.position.x = 0.7
    pose_target.position.y = -0.05
    pose_target.position.z = 1.1
    group.set_pose_target(pose_target)
    ## Now, we call the planner to compute the plan
    ## and visualize it if successful
    ## Note that we are just planning, not asking move_group 
    ## to actually move the robot
    plan1 = group.plan()

    ##execute the plan for gazebo the recieve 
    group.execute(plan1)
    print "============ Waiting while RVIZ displays plan1..."
    rospy.sleep(5)


    ## You can ask RVIZ to visualize a plan (aka trajectory) for you.  But the
    ## group.plan() method does this automatically so this is not that useful
    ## here (it just displays the same trajectory again).
    print "============ Visualizing plan1"
    display_trajectory = moveit_msgs.msg.DisplayTrajectory()

    display_trajectory.trajectory_start = robot.get_current_state()
    display_trajectory.trajectory.append(plan1)
    display_trajectory_publisher.publish(display_trajectory);

    print "============ Waiting while plan1 is visualized (again)..."
    rospy.sleep(5)

if __name__=='__main__':
  try:
    test()
  except rospy.ROSInterruptException:
    pass

So, I think the problem is coming at either the setposetarget(), or plan(), functions? Do I need to execute the generated plan using execute() for gazebo to receive the target pose? What do you guys think I might be doing wrong? I could have missed loads of stuff, in which case sorry!

Just a little more background:

Initially, I'm setting up the ur5 gazebo, move_group, and rviz nodes using the following commands:

roslaunch ur_gazebo ur5.launch

roslaunch ur5_moveit_config ur5_moveit_planning_execution.launch sim:=true

roslaunch ur5_moveit_config moveit_rviz.launch config:=true

as described on the ur gitub readme doc.

using Ros indigo desktop full, on ubuntu 14.04 vm, with ur5 packages downloaded from here.

Thanks so much in advance!