RoboND_Kinematics_Project

Project Dependency

The project requires robo-nd VM or Ubuntu+ROS installed locally.

Installations

One time Gazebo setup step: Check the version of gazebo installed on system using a terminal:

$ gazebo --version

To run projects version 7.7.0+ is needed. If gazebo version is not 7.7.0+, perform the update as follows:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo/ubuntu-stable `lsb_release -cs` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/gazebo-stable.list'
$ wget http://packages.osrfoundation.org/gazebo.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install gazebo7

Active ROS workspace:

$ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
$ cd ~/catkin_ws/
$ catkin_make

Now from a terminal window:

$ cd ~/catkin_ws
$ rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro=kinetic -y
$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src/RoboND-Kinematics-Project/kuka_arm/scripts
$ sudo chmod +x target_spawn.py
$ sudo chmod +x IK_server.py
$ sudo chmod +x safe_spawner.sh

Build the project:

$ cd ~/catkin_ws
$ catkin_make

Add following to .bashrc file

export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=~/catkin_ws/src/RoboND-Kinematics-Project/kuka_arm/models

source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash

To run Inverse Kinematics code change the demo flag to "false" and run the code (once the project has successfully loaded) by:

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src/RoboND-Kinematics-Project/kuka_arm/scripts
$ rosrun kuka_arm IK_server.py

Once Gazebo and rviz are up and running, make sure to see following in the gazebo world:

- Robot

- Shelf

- Blue cylindrical target in one of the shelves

- Dropbox right next to the robot

Results

The IK_server.py code is able to move the robotic arm for 10/10 cycles cleanly, where 10 target spawns are grasped from their random location and placed inside the bin: