Starting the robots (simulated / real)

Shadow hand only

Simulation

To start our hand, simply do:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch srhand.launch

This will launch the five finger hand (shadowhand_motor) by default . If you want to launch another hand, these are the hands available:

image0 image1 image2 image3 image4 image5 image6 image7 image8 image9
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
  Right Left
1 shadowhand_motor.urdf.xacro shadowhand_left_motor.urdf.xacro
2 shadowhand_motor_biotac.urdf.xacro shadowhand_left_motor_biotac.urdf.xacro
3 shadowhand_motor_ff_biotac.urdf.xacro  
4 shadowhand_motor_btsp.urdf.xacro  
5 shadowhand_motor_ellipsoid.urdf.xacro  
6 shadowhand_motor_th_ff_rf_ellipsoid.urdf.xacro  
7 shadowhand_muscle.urdf.xacro shadowhand_left_muscle.urdf.xacro
8 shadowhand_muscle_biotac.urdf.xacro  
9 shadowhand_lite.urdf.xacro  
10 shadowhand_extra_lite.urdf.xacro  

To start the simulation of a shadow hand, you can run:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch srhand.launch robot_description:=`rospack find sr_description`/robots/shadowhand_motor.urdf.xacro
  • The robot description param can be changed to start any of the available Shadow hands shown in the table.

  • If it is a left hand, hand_id:=lh should be added. For example:

    roslaunch sr_robot_launch srhand.launch robot_description:=`rospack find sr_description`/robots/shadowhand_left_motor.urdf.xacro hand_id:=lh
    
  • Moveit will enable advanced behaviour (inverse kinematics, planning, collision detectection, etc…), but if it is not needed, you can set use_moveit:=false

Real hand

To start a real hand, you can run:

roslaunch sr_ethercat_hand_config sr_rhand.launch

It has the specific configuration to launch your hand, including the ethernet port, the hand serial and robot description.

Shadow hand with UR10 arm

Simulation

To start the simulation of the hand and arm, you can run:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_right_ur10arm_hand.launch

or, for the left hand and arm

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_left_ur10arm_hand.launch

Real Robots

To start the real robots, do:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_right_ur10arm_hand.launch sim:=false hand_serial:=1178

or, for the left hand and arm

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_left_ur10arm_hand.launch sim:=false hand_serial:=1178

To find the hand serial you can launch the command without the hand_serial argument and then check the program output. You should see something like:

Trying to read mapping for: /hand/mapping/1178

In this case 1178 is the serial number of the hand.

To change the hand mapping, you can set the mapping_path argument. For example adding:

mapping_path:=`rospack find sr_edc_launch`/mappings/default_mappings/rh_E_v3.yaml

To change the ethernet port used for your hand, you can add the eth_port argument, such as:

eth_port:=eth6

Real Robots, using the normal (not limited) joint range

By default the URDF used for the UR10 arm uses a limited range for the joints, as that helps moveit find a planning solution. But as that restricts the robot movements, the user might want to start the robots with the full joint range. To do that:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_right_ur10arm_hand.launch sim:=false robot_description:=`rospack find sr_multi_description`/urdf/right_srhand_ur10.urdf.xacro hand_serial:=1178

or, for the left hand and arm

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_left_ur10arm_hand.launch sim:=false robot_description:=`rospack find sr_multi_description`/urdf/left_srhand_ur10.urdf.xacro hand_serial:=1178

Hand with tactile sensors

If your hand has biotacs sensors, simply append _biotacs to the robot_description:= and to the robot_config_file:= as seen below:

robot_description:=`rospack find sr_multi_description`/urdf/right_srhand_ur10_joint_limited_biotacs.urdf.xacro robot_config_file:=`rospack find sr_multi_moveit_config`/config/robot_configs/right_sh_ur10_biotac.yaml

Bimanual system

Simulation

To start the simulation of a bimanual system, you can run:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_bimanual.launch use_moveit:=true

Real Robots

To start the real robots, do:

roslaunch sr_robot_launch sr_bimanual.launch sim:=false rh_serial:=1290 lh_serial:=1338