meca500_ros_ik_demo

This repository contains a demonstration of solving the inverse kinematics of the Mecademic Meca500 using PyKDL and visualizing the robot in RVIZ. This repository was created as part of a ROS lecture for Intro to Robotics at Vanderbilt University.

System Information

This code has been tested using [http://wiki.ros.org/melodic ROS Melodic] running on [https://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/ Ubuntu 18.04].

Branches

In this repository, the main branch has the ROS portions of the code missing for pedagogical reasons. The solution branch contains the full version of the code.

Installation Instructions

1. Install dependices:

sudo apt install ros-melodic-joint-state-publisher-gui
sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-rqt-ez-publisher
rm ~/.config/ros.org/rqt_gui.ini

2. Create a catkin workspace:

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src

3. Download code:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/GarrisonJohnston123/meca500_ros_ik_demo.git
git clone https://github.com/Mecademic/ROS.git

If you want to download the solution branch, replace the second line in the above block with:

git clone https://github.com/GarrisonJohnston123/meca500_ros_ik_demo.git -b solution

4. build code:

cd ..
catkin_make

Running the Code

Run the following commands

cd ~/catkin_ws
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch meca_ik_demo meca_ik_demo.launch

Then, in rqt_ez_publisher select /joint_pos_desired. You can then use the sliders to set the desired pose of the robot and see the result in RVIZ.