Inspect the “pick_and_place” Package

In this exercise, we will get familiar with all the files that you will be interacting with throughout the next exercises.

Acquire and initialize the workspace

cp -r ~/industrial_training/exercises/Optimization_Based_Planning/template_ws ~/optimized_planning_ws
cd ~/optimized_planning_ws
source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash
catkin init

Download source dependencies

Use the wstool command to download the repositories listed in the src/.rosinstall file

cd ~/optimized_planning_ws/src/
wstool update

Download debian dependencies

Make sure you have installed and configured the rosdep tool. Then, run the following command from the /src directory of your workspace.

rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -y -r

We also need to install glfw.

sudo apt install libglfw3-dev libglfw3

Build your workspace

catkin build

If the build fails then revisit the previous two steps to make sure all the dependencies were downloaded.

Source the workspace

Run the following command from your workspace parent directory

source devel/setup.bash

Explore your workspace

Your workspace contains 7 packages

  • pick_and_place - This is the main pick and place package. It contains the main pick and place node and the launch file to bring up the system.

  • pick_and_place_perception - This package contains the perception pipeline. We will develop a PCL algorithm to use a 3D camera to detect a pick object and pass its location to the pick and place node.

  • pick_and_place_support - This package contains the support files for the system. This is where files such as the robot model are stored. It also contains code for camera calibration.

  • gl_depth_sim - This package simulates a 3D camera by using OpenGL to convert a mesh and a camera pose into a point cloud. It was installed from github by wstool.

  • tesseract - This package runs the planning environment. It contains tools for robot path planning, collision checking, and visualization. It was installed from github by wstool.

  • trajopt - This package contains the trajopt motion planner. We will use this to path plan - optimizing for collision avoidance, following a set of desired waypoints, and meeting physical robot constraints. It was installed from github by wstool.

  • iiwa_stack - This package contains the hardware driver for controlling a KUKA iiwa collaborative robot. It also contains the robot description that is used for simulation and path planning. It was installed from github by wstool.

Look into the src directory

Looking into the src directory of the main pick_and_place package, you will see the following:

Nodes:

  • test_bed_core_node.cpp : Main application thread. Contains all necessary headers and function calls to perform a scripted pick and place operation.

  • sensor_simulator_3d.cpp : Simulates data from a 3D camera sensor. Only used in simulation.

Utilities

  • trajopt_pick_and_place_constructor.cpp : Contains source code for trajopt pick and place helper functions. This is where the majority of the trajopt implementation will be.