Changing the joint position on a robot

asked 2021-04-13 09:41:37 -0500

psilva
1 ●1 ●2 ●3

Hi there,

I have a robot description in xacro files which I would use to spawn in a gazebo world. I used this robot to explore and map the world with a given SLAM which uses the information coming from an RPLidar A3 mounted on my robot.

What I would like to do is to change the position/orientation of this sensor and compare the performance of the SLAM given each different position/orientation of the sensor. To achieve this I plan on using some kind of optimization algorithm to change the position/orientation and compare the results. However, to do this, I would need to write some kind of node that is able to access the robot description and change it.

I understand this problem is very similar with previous questions asked regarding the changing of tools in Industrial-type robots:

https://answers.ros.org/question/1973...

https://answers.ros.org/question/4981...

Since these are quite old posts, I would like to know if there as been a definite solution developed for this type of problem?

Thanks in advance.

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answered 2021-04-13 14:10:25 -0500

gvdhoorn
86574 ●283 ●1432 ●1054 http://cor.tudelft.nl/

I understand this problem is very similar with previous questions asked regarding the changing of tools in Industrial-type robots:

not entirely I believe.

The main issue with tool changing is that tools have geometry (ie: they have a shape) which must be represented and be accurate for things like motion planning while avoiding collisions.

You don't appear to have that requirement, as you're only moving a sensor frame.

What I would like to do is to change the position/orientation of this sensor and compare the performance of the SLAM given each different position/orientation of the sensor. To achieve this I plan on using some kind of optimization algorithm to change the position/orientation and compare the results. However, to do this, I would need to write some kind of node that is able to access the robot description and change it.

I'd suggest to not change the URDF at all, but to write a node which broadcasts the transform which connects your sensor to the rest of the robot.

As TF transforms can be updated real-time, you could have your node update the position of your sensor frame relative to the rest of your robot in real-time as well.

If I understand your description correctly, you'd:

choose an orientation and location for your sensor frame
broadcast that as a TF frame with your node
run your experiment
go to 1

Note: you're publishing a TF relative to some piece of fixed geometry on the robot. You wouldn't have to keep updating the location of your sensor frame in "the world". That's taken care of for you by the TF2 system.

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Hmm i think you're right! I'll give it a shot for sure, ty!

psilva ( 2021-04-14 03:29:12 -0500 )edit

I'm guessing the only downside would be that i won't see the sensor model itself anymore right?

psilva ( 2021-04-14 03:44:26 -0500 )edit

If you include the sensor model in the urdf, but then not attach it using a joint but using a TF, you can still visualise the model.

So you wouldn't publish the sensor frame, but the TF between your robot and the model of the sensor (which would itself define the sensor frame (ie: the frame to which measurements are relative)).

RViz (and every other consumer of the URDF) probably won't be happy until you start publishing the TF, but it should work.

gvdhoorn ( 2021-04-14 03:50:38 -0500 )edit

Hmm so if i comment out the joint and leave the link declared i get the following error Failed to find root link: Two root links found: [base_footprint] and [left_front_rplidar_link] Furthermore, I don't believe gazebo will care if I change the tf right? I think gazebo only looks at the sdf that is created with the spawner.py once and then never looks at it again. I think a solution would be to just do a test run -> change the urdf -> delete the robot model -> spawn new model

psilva ( 2021-04-14 05:28:57 -0500 )edit

I'd sort-of missed the part where you're using Gazebo.

That complicates things a bit.

You could perhaps go into the direction of a Gazebo plugin which is responsible for updating the model, but I'm not sure how that would work.

If you're reusing the URDF for Gazebo as well, perhaps going the way of editing the .urdf/.xacro itself might be more scalable/less involved.

If you end up doing this, post it as an answer and accept your own answer.

I'll leave my answer but prefix it with a comment clarifying how Gazebo makes this more complex.

gvdhoorn ( 2021-04-14 05:42:12 -0500 )edit

Will do. Following this, do you think it would be possible to spawn the robot and the sensor separately (but maintaining them connected). This way I could just delete the sensor model and spawn another one instead of spawning the whole robot all over again.

psilva ( 2021-04-14 05:48:12 -0500 )edit

I would personally not do that, as I'm not sure it's going to work correctly (there are many parts of the infrastructure which may not like you doing that).

gvdhoorn ( 2021-04-14 05:53:53 -0500 )edit

So just the whole robot would probably be safer?

psilva ( 2021-04-14 05:57:27 -0500 )edit

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