Use diff_drive_controller with voltage controlled motors
I am working on a differential drive robot using real hardware. It has two motors (wheel joints/actuators) that accept effort (voltage) values.
Is it possible to use diff_drive_controller from ROS control with these effort controlled motors? The documentation says that diff_drive_controller works with a VelocityJointInterface and not with EffortJointInterface.
Does this mean that in the hardware_interface, I have to translate the velocity commands from the controller into voltage commands for the motors? And similar for reading encoder feedback: read encoder ticks and convert them to velocity?
Are the input and output of the diff_drive_controller just velocities? How can we apply voltages to motors from the velocity values?
Could I please ask you to stop bumping your questions?
You have a couple now which you keep editing for no apparent reason. Please don't do that.
Sorry @gvdhoorn. To my defence I am new to ROS control and would like to learn more how to use it for a hobby project. I waited more than two weeks on my first question on that topic with no activity (comment or answer). Please understand that I would like to get some answers or discussions to my questions. To me it seems that questions never get answered when not on the top :( I would really appreciate your help or from someone else. Also please let me know if my questions are unclear or too unspecific?