A hardware-in-the-loop simulator for physical human-aerial manipulator cooperation

This software allows a simulated unmanned aerial manipulator (UAM) to interact with the real world through an hardware interface. The UAM can perform both autonomous and human/UAM collaborative tasks.

The simulator provides the following elements:

• A UAM model already implemented inside the Gazebo simulator. The UAV odometry is obtained through the RotorS odometry plugin;
• A bilateral communication interface connecting the hardware with the simulated model;
• Some example controllers for the UAM and the hardware interface to test the proposed architecture.

The UAM model consists of a quadrotor and a 6DoFs manipulator attached under it.

The hardware interface can be any device as long as its position in the space can be commanded (e.g., manipulators and/or haptic interfaces). The hardware also needs a force sensor, to provide the real force feedback at the the UAM.

Installation Instructions - Ubuntu 18.04 with ROS Melodic

1. Install and initialize ROS Melodic desktop full:

$ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
$ sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-desktop-full
$ sudo rosdep init
$ rosdep update
$ source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash

2. If you don't have ROS a workspace yet, you can create one by

$ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
$ catkin_init_workspace  # initialize your catkin workspace

3. Get and install the RotorS simulator.
4. Clone this repository into your workspace and compile it with

$ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
$ git clone https://github.com/prisma-lab/HIL_airmanip.git
$ catkin_make

Folders

aerialmanip_control

The aerialmanip_control folder contains the Gazebo simulation world file, the quadrotor xacro description and the UAM controllers.

arm_description

The arm_description folder contains the UAM arm xacro description and its joint position controllers.

connection_plugin

The connection_plugin folder contains the Gazebo plugin used to connect the simulated and the real world. This plugin reads the hardware measured force and applies it to the UAM.

hardware_controller

The hardware_controller folder contains the hardware control system and can be modified accordingly to the user chosen hardware interface. The provided hardware controller considers the KUKA LBR IIWA manipulator.