It's is possible to use SOEM to communicate directly to a AC Servo Drive using ROS?
I need to develop a cartesian robot of 5 DOF without using a PLC. The AC servo drive that I have can communicate via CANopen or EtherCAT (and other protocols too). Choosing to use EtherCAT now I can, in the future, use CoE theorically. But, being a total beginner in ROS, I need to know if I am in the right way or using ROS with one of these protocols is impossible to archive sucess in this project?
Using a industrial PC with ubuntu 18.04 LTS and ROS Melodic.
ps.: sorry for my bad english.
It's not ethercat, but for canopen, you could look at ros_canopen.
But checking the page of ROS-Industrial they say that SOEM is a open-source EtherCAT ( https://github.com/mgruhler/soem ). I'm wrong to believe it's possible to use EtherCAT to control servos with ROS?
I don't believe I commented on the state of ethercat support. I just wanted to make you aware of the canopen support.
Thank you! But one more question: can you indicate a good (or complete) tutorial to do that with CANopen?
No, I wouldn't know of any.
There are quite a few questions about
ros_canopenon this site (ie: ROS Answers) though. Perhaps those can be of help.Use Google to search for them (something like:
ros_canopen site:answers.ros.org).And if I choose to use Ethernet/IP, what you opinion about it? (Remember, I need to control servo drivers with a industrial PC)