Create ROS-I interface for a non-supported robot

Hello,

I have an Estun industrial robotic arm (from China) http://en.estun.com/ProductClass.aspx?id=559 which has no ROS-Industrial driver.

Is there any way to make it compatible with ROS-I? I'm not expecting a complete solution, but hopefully someone can point to some guide / example that would be useful for me to do this interfacing.

EDIT:

Currently the robot can only be programmed via a teach pendant, using a C-like language. It can also be interfaced via MODBUS, so I can write a program which accepts something from the MODBUS (positions / coordinates etc) and move the robot arm accordingly.

There might be other communication methods, but the vendor is hiding them from us (for business reason I suppose). If needed, I could ask them to make these available.

Asked by Arif Rahman on 2019-04-29 04:36:17 UTC

Comments

Can you say anything about what sort of interfaces are available for those robots (ie: ethercat, powerlink, plain UDP, TCP, RS232, can(open), etc)? Any vendor-supported real-time external motion interfaces available? Also: how are those robots programmed? A custom language developed by the OEM? Does that support socket communication? Can motions be completely controlled by/initiated from a program?

Asked by gvdhoorn on 2019-04-29 05:03:10 UTC

@gvdhoorn please see edit.

Asked by Arif Rahman on 2019-04-29 05:18:28 UTC

You don't need to @-mention someone that has already commented on your question. They'll get notified automatically.

Asked by gvdhoorn on 2019-04-29 05:25:08 UTC

Hello, do you have any update on this? I am working with a similar robot and I am curious about your progress.

Asked by fuzzy-sham on 2019-10-01 08:07:34 UTC

Sorry no update, we decided that this is too much work and just go without ROS at the moment.

Asked by Arif Rahman on 2019-10-02 05:12:29 UTC

Answers

Taking this a bit wider (so not necessarily a "ROS-I interface"):

Currently the robot can only be programmed via a teach pendant, using a C-like language. It can also be interfaced via MODBUS, so I can write a program which accepts something from the MODBUS (positions / coordinates etc) and move the robot arm accordingly.

that would be something that could work. Given proper buffering and blending of motions this could be a viable first approach.

If you'd like to reuse something like industrial_robot_client you could take a look at any of the server-side (ie: controller) programs in abb_driver or fanuc_driver. They're no longer being developed (as better interfaces are now available), but it should give you an idea.

There might be other communication methods, but the vendor is hiding them from us (for business reason I suppose). If needed, I could ask them to make these available.

Depending on your actual use-case / application it might be worth it to ask them.

Asked by gvdhoorn on 2019-04-29 05:23:13 UTC