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gazebo_yarp_robotinterface

The gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin permits to load several YARP devices that can be attached to YARP devices already opened by other Gazebo-YARP plugins using the same XML format used by the yarprobotinterface tool and the libYARP_robotinterface C++ library.

Usage

Add the plugin in the SDF model

The gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin can be used by including in any SDF model:

<model name="model_name">
  <!-- Insert models, links, joints -->
  <!-- ... -->

  <!-- Insert other plugins -->
  <!-- ... -->
  
  <!-- Insert other gazebo_yarp_robotinterface -->
  <plugin name="robotinterface" filename="libgazebo_yarp_robotinterface.so">
    <!-- This file can be specified with the model:// URI already used in Gazebo, see http://gazebosim.org/tutorials?tut=components&cat=get_started -->
    <yarpRobotInterfaceConfigurationFile>model://RobotInterfaceConfigurationFile.xml</yarpRobotInterfaceConfigurationFile>
  </plugin>
</model>

Warning: the gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin is only able to be attached to YARP devices that have been already created once the gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin has been spawned, so it is a good practice to always include it as last tag in a model.

Example of the robotinterface XML file

The file specified in yarpRobotInterfaceConfigurationFile is a XML file specified according to the yarprobotinterface format, for example:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE robot PUBLIC "-//YARP//DTD yarprobotinterface 3.0//EN" "http://www.yarp.it/DTD/yarprobotinterfaceV3.0.dtd">
<robot name="robot_name" prefix="robot_prefix">
  <!-- YARP devices to spawn in the robotinterface be specified with the devices tag -->
  <devices>
    <!-- each YARP device is specified with the device tag -->
    <device name="yarp_device_name" type="yarp_device_type">
      <!-- specify any parameter to the device with param tags -->
      <param name="integer_param_example"> 10 </param>
      <param name="string_param_example">this_is_a_string/param>
      <!-- To specify the existing YARP devices to which the newly spawned device needs to attach -->
      <action phase="startup" level="5" type="attach">
        <paramlist name="networks">
          <!-- This should match the yarpDeviceName in the .ini file loaded in the Gazebo plugin. -->
          <!-- The yarpDeviceName plays the same role of the name attribute of the device XML element 
               for devices that are created via the robotinterface XML format. -->
          <elem name="list_key_example"> yarp_device_name_of_device_to_which_to_attach </elem>
        </paramlist>
      </action>
      <!-- If you added an attach action, always specify the detach action during the shutdown phase -->
      <action phase="shutdown" level="5" type="detach" />
    </device>
  </devices>
</robot>

How to specify existing YARP devices to which to attach

The main use of the gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin is to spawn YARP devices that are attached to YARP devices that have been already spawned by other gazebo-yarp-plugins. For this reason, it is necessary to have a way to specify to which YARP devices a device spawned by gazebo_yarp_robotinterface is attached, i.e. the values of each element in the <paramlist name="networks"> list under the <action phase="startup" level="5" type="attach"> element. In this content, we call this "device instance identified" as YARP device instance name, as for devices spawned by the XML of robotinterface, this is specified by the name attribute of the device tag. It is important not to confuse this with the YARP device type name, that is instead the name that identifies the type of plugin that is spawned, i.e. the type attribute of the device tag.

The gazebo_yarp_robotinterface can be attached to any YARP device created by any plugin inside the model, or in any plugin contained in any nested sensor or model.

For historic reason, not all the gazebo-yarp-plugins support specifying the YARP device instance name for the device that they spawn to permit to use them with the gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin. If you need to have this functionality in a specific plugin, feel free to open an issue.

Warning: as the YARP device instance name is specified without any specific Gazebo model or sensor namespace, it is important to use the gazebo_yarp_robotinterface plugin that all the YARP devices contained in the model have a unique YARP device instance name. If this is not the case, the plugin will print a clear error and exit without starting.

The plugins that spawn YARP devices in a way that they can be then attached to the yarprobotinterface as specified in the following table, together with the details with which the YARP device instance name can be specified:

Plugin Details
gazebo_yarp_controlboard This plugin can create multiple YARP devices that expose joint-level motor and control interfaces such as yarp::dev::IPositionControl, yarp::dev::ITorqueControl and yarp::dev::ITorqueControl. For this plugin, the YARP device instance name for each created device is specified with the networks parameter list in the plugin configuration.
gazebo_yarp_depthcamera This plugin can create a YARP device that expose a depth-camera interface. For this plugin, the YARP device instance name can be specified by the yarpDeviceName parameter in the plugin configuration.
gazebo_yarp_lasersensor This plugin can create a YARP device that expose a laser-seensor interface. For this plugin, the YARP device instance name can be specified by the yarpDeviceName parameter in the plugin configuration.
gazebo_yarp_doublelaser This plugin can create a YARP device network wrapper server that expose two existing laser sensors. For this plugin, the YARP device instance name can be specified by the yarpDeviceName parameter in the plugin configuration.