tiago_spnav_teleop

TIAGo (and TIAGo++) arm teleoperation with 3Dconnexion's SpaceMouse.

Running in simulation

We recommend Docker. It is assumed that you have cloned this repository inside your current working directory.

For single-arm TIAGo

docker run -it --privileged --network host -e DISPLAY \
           -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro \
           -v $XAUTHORITY:/root/.Xauthority:ro \
           -v /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb \
           -v $PWD/tiago_spnav_teleop:/tiago_public_ws/src/tiago_spnav_teleop \
       palroboticssl/tiago_tutorials:noetic

Then (assuming you have run catkin build tiago_spnav_teleop):

roslaunch tiago_spnav_teleop tiago_gazebo.launch

For dual-arm TIAGo++

docker run -it --privileged --network host -e DISPLAY \
           -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro \
           -v $XAUTHORITY:/root/.Xauthority:ro \
           -v /dev/bus/usb:/dev/bus/usb \
           -v $PWD/tiago_spnav_teleop:/tiago_dual_public_ws/src/tiago_spnav_teleop \
       palroboticssl/tiago_dual_tutorials:noetic

Then (assuming you have run catkin build tiago_spnav_teleop):

roslaunch tiago_spnav_teleop tiago_dual_gazebo.launch arm:=right

Alternatively, use arm:=left or arm:=both to achieve the obvious result.

Running on the real robot

Upload the project to your active workspace and build it using the deploy.py script (but without deploying it yet):

rosrun pal_deploy deploy.py -u pal -p tiago_spnav_teleop $(hostname)

Press n when asked to rsync, then copy the command displayed at the bottom, replace pal with root, and run it. Make sure to reboot the robot at least once in order to let ROS find the plugin library at the next start.

Instantiating the 3D mouse controller

On an external PC connected to the same WiFi (check that ROS_IP points at your IP inside said network):

export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://10.68.0.1:11311
export ROS_IP=$(hostname -I | awk '{print $1}')
roslaunch tiago_spnav_teleop spnav_mouse.launch

Append __ns:=/spnav_controller_right or __ns:=/spnav_controller_right to the latter command if using TIAGo++. Launch it twice (using different left/right namespaces) in case you have two devices and want to use both arms.

For single-arm TIAGo

After you ssh into the robot:

roslaunch tiago_spnav_teleop tiago_real.launch

For dual-arm TIAGo++

After you ssh into the robot:

roslaunch tiago_spnav_teleop tiago_dual_real.launch arm:=right

Alternatively, use arm:=left or arm:=both to achieve the obvious result.

Important notes and post-demo actions

• Upon initialization, the robot will extend the requested arm. Make sure its path is free of obstacles.
• The FreeSpacenav implementation that powers ROS 3D mouse controllers doesn't allow communicating with more than a single device on the same machine. This means that, if you wish to bimanipulate TIAGo++ with two devices, you will need to issue spnav_mouse.launch on different machines (one of them could be the robot itself as long as you apt install spacenavd ros-$(echo $ROS_DISTRO)-spacenav-node and plug the device in one of its external USB ports), assign different ROS namespaces (e.g. __ns:==/spnav_controller_right) and check communications (rostopic echo /spnav_controller_right/spacenav/joy).
• If you want to restore the default controllers after closing this application, run rosrun tiago_spnav_teleop stop_spnav.py. Append --arm left, --arm right or --arm both correspondingly if using TIAGo++.

Citation

If you found this project useful, please consider citing the following work:

Calzada García, A., Łukawski, B., Victores, J., & Balaguer, C. (2024). Teleoperation of the robot TIAGo with a 3D mouse controller. In Actas del Simposio de Robótica, Bioingeniería y Visión por Computador (pp. 133–138). Universidad de Extremadura.

@inproceedings{calzada2024srbv,
    author={Calzada García, Ana and Łukawski, Bartek and Victores, Juan G. and Balaguer, Carlos},
    title={{Teleoperation of the robot TIAGo with a 3D mouse controller}},
    booktitle={Actas del Simposio de Robótica, Bioingeniería y Visión por Computador},
    year={2024},
    pages={133--138},
    publisher={Universidad de Extremadura},
    url={http://hdl.handle.net/10662/21260},
}