{"id":1170,"date":"2024-08-04T19:55:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-04T17:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erdalpekel.de\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2024-08-14T19:04:24","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T17:04:24","slug":"control-panda-with-moveit-in-omniverse-isaac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erdalpekel.de\/?p=1170","title":{"rendered":"Control Panda with MoveIt! in Omniverse Isaac"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this blog post, we will import an existing robotic arm model into NVIDIA’s Omniverse Isaac simulation environment and create a ROS package and an Isaac extension for controlling the arm with MoveIt!. MoveIt! will control to the robotic arm inside Isaac via the ROS Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NVIDIA Omniverse Isaac gains popularity with a rich feature set and realistic simulations with accurate physics and ray-tracing. In this post, we will lay the foundation for a simulation world where a robotic arm can be used for more complex tasks such as populating a conveyor belt with packages in a warehouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We will use the Franka Emika Panda arm as an example, but the configuration path outlined in this post applies to any robotic arm with a correct URDF file. In the illustration<\/a> below, you can see our workflow for controlling the robotic arm in Isaac with ROS using MoveIt!. We will use the robot URDF as input for the MoveIt Setup Assistant and the Isaac URDF importer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MoveIt Setup Assistant will output a ROS package that provides everything we need to start the motion planning pipeline. In addition, we will create a small ROS package that launches the motion planning pipeline. This package can later be used as a starting point for more complex implementations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Isaac URDF importer will output a .usd (binary) or .usda (human-readable) file which we will import into a scene with an Isaac extension<\/a>. With the extension, we will create a so-called Action graph that provides an interface for communication between the robotic arm in Isaac Sim and the robot control and motion planning components running on the ROS side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ROS MoveIt! and Omniverse Isaac Robotic Arm workflow illustrated<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We will build this prototype with the long term support version of ROS2, Humble, and NVIDIA Omniverse Isaac version 2023.1.1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Implementation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

ROS \/ MoveIt!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We will use a simple URDF file for the Franka Emika robotic arm as the starting point of our ROS configuration. The model defines the robot without the hand component. In the workflow illustration<\/a>, we outlined how we will use the URDF file to create a ROS package as MoveIt configuration. The robot URDF itself is located inside a different, simple ROS package called franka_description<\/code>. I created this package for the purpose of this tutorial. It contains the URDF file and the geometry files that visualize the robot’s links and their collision models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s start by creating a ROS2 workspace and cloning the franka_description<\/code> repository into the src<\/code> directory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

mkdir -p ~\/isaac_moveit_ws\/src\ncd ~\/isaac_moveit_ws\/src\ngit clone https:\/\/github.com\/erdalpekel\/franka_description.git\ncd ..\ncolcon build\nsource install\/setup.bash\nros2 run moveit_setup_assistant moveit_setup_assistant<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
After building and sourcing the workspace we can start the MoveIt! Setup Assistant as outlined above. The assistant uses the robot URDF as input and configures the motion planning pipeline with the input provided by the user. In the gallery provided below<\/a>, you can see how to configure the robotic arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The user checks for self-collisions of the arm’s links and proceeds to add a planning group. We add the robot’s links, joints and kinematic chain for the planning group definition. We also specify the kinamtic solver to kdl_kinematics<\/code>. In the following steps, we generate the ROS2 and MoveIt! controllers with the assistant and finish the configuration by adding information about the author. We save the package to a new subdirectory inside our workspace called franka_moveit_config<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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