How to add support for Universal Robots UR20 and UR30 using loadrobot API?

How to add support for Universal Robots UR20 and UR30 using loadrobot API?

Answer 1

[Jishnu Subramonian]

The URDF files for Universal Robots (UR20/UR30) can be generated using the below steps and use them in MATLAB as follows:

1. Download the ROS VM shipped by MathWorks from:

https://www.mathworks.com/support/product/robotics/ros2-vm-installation-instructions-v9.html

2. The Universal Robots package is already present in the same VM at:

/home/user/catkin_ws/src/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Description-rolling

3. To generate URDF from Xacro, open a terminal and enter the following commands:

$ cd /home/user/catkin_ws/src/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Description-rolling/urdf/

$ source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.bash

$ ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:~/catkin_ws/src/Universal_Robots_ROS2_Description-rolling

$ echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH

$ xacro ur.urdf.xacro name:=ur20 ur_type:=ur20 > ur20.urdf

$ xacro ur.urdf.xacro name:=ur30 ur_type:=ur30 > ur30.urdf

These commands generate the URDF files in the Universal_Robots_ROS2_Description folder.

4. If MATLAB is on another machine, copy the `Universal_Robots_ROS2_Description-rolling` folder along with the `urdf` and `meshes` folders.

5. Use `importrobot` in MATLAB to load the robot model.

This step can be repeated for the required Cobot model.