How to use cartesian_compliance_controller with MoveIt2 and real UR10e robot?

[Adrian2702]

Problem description

I use the ur_robot_driver to control a real UR10e robot. The robot gets new poses from a C++ script. Everything works fine with the scaled_joint_trajectory_controller from ur_controllers. But for the application (sanding over an object) it is necessary to consider the contact forces with the object and not to use pure position control as before. So I tried the cartesian_compliance_controller. As far as I have implemented it, it is possible to activate the controller and send pose data like:

ros2 topic pub --once /target_frame geometry_msgs/msg/PoseStamped '{'header': {'stamp': 'now', 'frame_id': 'base_link'}, 'pose': {'position':{x: 0.5, y: 0.5, z: 0.5}, 'orientation':{x: 0, y: 0, z: 0, w: 1}}}'

to the robot. So far I use MoveIt2 to plan the trajectory. However, when I now send my poses via C++ script with cartesian_compliance_controller enabled, the move_group.moveit.moveit.plugins.simple_controller_manager throws an error because it only recognizes 2 controllers (scaled_joint_trajectory_controller and joint_trajectory_controller) as configured in the moveit_controllers.yaml file in the ur_moveit_config package. My question is, how can I continue to use MoveIt2 as my planner but in combination with the cartesian_compliance_controller? There was some kind of workaround for ROS1, but is there still a good solution for ROS2?

Software versions

• Commit: f8aad77
• OS: Linux 6.8.0-45-generic
• ROS version: ROS2 Jazzy

[edtriccorp]

Hi @Adrian2702,

Were you able to get the Cartesian controllers to work/launch with Jazzy? I ran into issues when trying to launch them with Jazzy. I have them working in Humble. I also recently started investigating how to get MoveIt2 integrated with the Cartesian Controllers.

The MoveIt2 move_group_interface_tutorial.cpp has basic examples of Cartesian Path Planning but I am unclear on how to connect MoveIt2 to the Cartesian Controller /targetframe topics. We are also interested in constraining the joint configuration of the eoat ... for example parallel to a surface ....etc... I am unclear if this can be achieved by Cartesian Path planning or if it needs to be hybrid. Similar to the example section "Enforce Planning in Joint Space".

I am gathering so far that it appears that using MoveIt2 would result in IK solving which kind of defeats the strength of these controllers but I am hoping my understanding is wrong?