rethinkrobotics/baxter_common

ROS Messages and robot description files for the Baxter Research Robot

baxter_common's Issues

Branch for kinetic

Can we create an (unofficial) kinetic-devel branch for this repo so that I can PR changes necessary for Gazebo 7 support to that branch? I have a pull request ready.

Otherwise, I will just have to fork this project.

basic_hard_tip.DAE and basic_hard_tip.STL are messed up

basic_hard_tip.DAE and basic_hard_tip.STL are completely messed up on the bottom of the mesh, where there should be an opening. It looks as if some mesh optimizer was run on all the meshes, but tripped up most badly on this particular one. In general, all the meshes appear to be messy, likely for the same reason. I'm currently fixing the hard tip file, I'll try to post it here once I'm done.

Rviz Mesh Color

The last commits for changing mesh colors seem to have caused issues with rending Baxter in rviz:

Before:

After:

Baxter needs damping

All tags that look like this:

     <dynamics damping="0.0" friction="0.0"/>

Should have damping. From my guess-and-checking:

     <dynamics damping="0.7" friction="0.0"/>

Is a good value. Note: friction is not used in gazebo.

Otherwise Baxter wiggles around continuously in Gazebo.

baxter.urdf.xacro missing?

Hello,

I was looking to retrieve an URDF model for the Baxter robot, and I found this baxter.urdf file.

Problem is that the file itself says it is deprecated, and it has been replaced by baxter.urdf.xacro (see line 6 of the file), but said file is missing.

Baxter's base moves in Gazebo over time

Baxter's base will move with respect to the world over time in Gazebo. From a customer:

"my baxter robot wanders around the plane he's sitting on, as if the wheels were not locked (except not necessarily in the direction of the wheels). "

I believe we need to add a link to the world for the URDF in Gazebo.

Pedestal Collision Body

It appears Baxter is missing an accurate collision body for his optional torso, beyond a rectangular base at the bottom:

Tweak the screen_visual link location

Needs to be better aligned with baxter's face (I worked on it for a while but its not perfect)

Joint head_nod should not be fixed

I ran into this problem with a related issue in the latest changes to MoveIt. Although that is a separate issue, it seems like the URDF should be updated on Baxter to support its screen nodding just like it can in real life. I understand the screen nod doesn't have real encoders / full rotation, but we should still be able to see these changes in rviz and gazebo.

Note: I have made the joint non-fixed in my fork of the urdf and I notice the center of rotation is currently not in the correct location.

Error in loading `baxter.urdf.xacro` onto parameter server

Hello, I am trying to load baxter.urdf.xacro in the parameter server without running the robot (for testing purposes).

To this end, I created the following file (please tell me if it can be improved):

<launch>
  <param name="robot_description" command="$(find xacro)/xacro '$(find baxter_description)/urdf/baxter.urdf.xacro'" />
</launch>

But when I run it, I get the following error:

[alecive@malakim]$ roslaunch baxter_react_controller baxter_urdf.launch 
... logging to /home/alecive/.ros/log/6277adee-ed81-11e6-8593-6c2995068b46/roslaunch-malakim-21423.log
Checking log directory for disk usage. This may take awhile.
Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
Done checking log file disk usage. Usage is <1GB.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/xacro/xacro", line 55, in <module>
    xacro.main()
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 687, in main
    process_includes(doc, os.path.dirname(args[0]))
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 246, in process_includes
    filename_spec = eval_text(elt.getAttribute('filename'), {})
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 483, in eval_text
    results.append(handle_expr(lex.next()[1][2:-1]))
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 470, in handle_expr
    return eval_expr(lex, symbols)
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 444, in eval_expr
    result = eval_term(lex, symbols)
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 418, in eval_term
    result = eval_factor(lex, symbols)
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 398, in eval_factor
    return neg * eval_lit(lex, symbols)
  File "/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/xacro/__init__.py", line 369, in eval_lit
    raise XacroException("Property wasn't defined: %s" % str(ex))
xacro.XacroException: Property wasn't defined: u'l_finger'
Invalid <param> tag: Cannot load command parameter [robot_description]: command [/home/alecive/code/ros_catkin_ws/install_isolated/lib/xacro/xacro '/home/alecive/code/catkin_ws/src/baxter_common/baxter_description/urdf/baxter.urdf.xacro'] returned with code [1]. 

Param xml is <param command="$(find xacro)/xacro '$(find baxter_description)/urdf/baxter.urdf.xacro'" name="robot_description"/>
The traceback for the exception was written to the log file

No inertia for base link

MoveIt! (or some ROS app, I'm pretty sure it was MoveIt!) throws a warning if your base (fixed) link has an inertia. In my version of Baxter.urdf I have removed the inertia in the <link name="base"> element.

Release into Indigo

Replace base_link_collision.STL with a DAE version

To be more standards compliant, not very important

API Msg sync changes need addressing

Further attention needs to be paid to the API message changes introduced, specifically in PR / Issue #31

Opening this issue so that we can merge the sync PR to continue development, but so before release we make sure that we address all changes necessary, address backwards compatibility / proper deprecation, and any additional changes that should go in / not go in before our 0.8 release

For example: Dan's comment on the original PR:
#31 (comment)

Remove baxter.urdf

This file is an artifact before baxter.urdf.xacro was created in a newer Baxter API version. There is currently differences between the two files - .urdf is not simply the generated output of the .xacro file. For example, .urdf has gravity tags and .xacro does not.

I think the .urdf file should be removed to avoid confusion

Evaluate Hardware Interface and Zero Gravity URDF tags in Baxter

@rethink-hmalaichamee updated Baxter's URDF to use extra tags to work with baxter_simulator in Indigo/Gazebo 2.0 via PR #57 . He said the following:

• I had added the tag under each link in the URDF to turn off the gravity for those links. Unfortunately, it showed no effects and I had to do the above specified method to disable gravity. Need to remove those tags and test if it works.
• In the URDF tag was added to the joints as required (in Indigo) in addition to those in the actuators. Rob asked me to remove them from the actuators since they are no more mandatory. However, this had an error that caused the simulator to fail when there was no such tag for the actuator. This needs to be removed and tested.

I am merging these tags since I've tested the URDF with them and they work, but I would like to know more about them & make sure they are necessary.

Reference Notice: Used In Gazebo Tutorials

Just a heads up that I have updated the Gazebo tutorials to use the Baxter.urdf file from this repo, I'm glad its public, thanks!

http://gazebosim.org/wiki/Tutorials/1.9/Using_roslaunch_Files_to_Spawn_Models#URDF_Example_with_Baxter

Feel free to close this fake issue :)

Request for default baxter SDK face image

Can you guys release the Rethink logo w/the research subtitle image? I'd like to set a default image for baxter when he boots up in Gazebo and I think you guys would appreciate it being that one. I think this would go in something like baxter_description/media/face_logo.png

Release to Kinetic

Even though I understand a full official release of Baxter for Kinetic has its own timeline, delays, and internal Rethink testing requirements, I think you guys should go ahead and released baxter_description into Kinetic so that, at least in simulation, Baxter can be easily used in the latest LTS. We also need this in the moveit_robots repo for Kinetic, where baxter_moveit_config lives. Currently our Travis build for that repo is failing because of that missing dependency.

Baxter head collision mesh

The Baxter is unable to reach its max joint limit for joint S1 because of collisions with the two head collision meshes:

• collision_head_link_1
• collision_head_link_2

Can these be shrunk further or are they important? It seems like if we know the angular location of the screen we don't need to have such a course-grained collision model. This is causing inaccuracies in Gazebo.

Which branch to be installed for ROS melodic distro?