I’m building a humanoid robot using Dynamixel PRO Servos and will include things like a Chatscript Server, Text-to-Speech, an animated video-screen face and arms and head that move (no walking, robot will be stationary). I’m looking for guidance or a collaborator in the Portland, Oregon area.
I’ve been learning ROS from tutorials and via the Robot Ignite Academy at theconstructsim.com but would really love to find someone to collaborate with who has more experience on the programming side of things. I’m more of a builder/fabricator who has done a lot with Arduinos and Raspberry Pis, and a tiny bit of Python.
Please give me a shout if you are interested in getting involved or ca refer me to someone in the Portland, Oregon area.
Tom, there’s a ROS meetup in Hillsboro run by @edcepp, that might be a good way to get some collaborators.
I’m in the PDX area myself, but my plate is full right now so can’t work on this directly. However, I’m happy to help provide some support to you if you have questions or want to chat sometime. I’ve got a few years of ROS experience.
It has Dynamixel servos under the control of an OpenCR controller. We have run into some problems interfacing to the controller so we haven’t gotten to Moveit or the URDF modeling yet. I believe it may be supported. See the manual at the link above. (We are currently working under ROS1 Kinetic on Ubuntu 16.04.)
The Robotis Turtlebot3 also uses Dynamixel servo motors. There may be something that you can find useful in their TB3 book
ROS Robot Programming: A Handbook Written by TurtleBot3 Developers by Yoonseok Pyo, et. al.
The TB3 uses a OpenCR controller so you probably won’t be able to apply that information directly. Chapter 13 talks about the Open Manipulator, Moveit and URDF. This chapter (plus others) also talks about Dynamixel servos but it may focus too heavily on the OpenCV SDK to serve your needs.
I’ve played around a little bit with the OpenManipulator software package… I have a handful of AX-12, some XM540 and XM430 servos. I’ve also checked out the RoboPlus 2.0 software on Windows and RoboManager. The RoboManager is nice for accessing and configuring the dynamixels from the start.
I was at first attempting to use the OpenManipulator package with my own servos (not the whole package as sold by Robotis) , but I was having difficulty customizing the URDF and other settings within the package to apply to my prototype setup. I was also having problems getting the Processing sketch to work, but again that might simply be because the OpenManipulator package wasn’t finding the right servos. I was very excited abut the posing feature and was hoping to be able to leverage that with my project.
I also have the OpenCR1.0 and the OpenCM9.04 + 485 expansion board as well as a U2D2 and I’ve been experimenting with all of them… as well as trying out the Moveit! package.
For my project I am planning to use a RaspberryPi running ROS, so I don’t think I will use the OpenCR or the OpenCM boards, and perhaps just stick with the U2D2. Also I might be combining the Pro series, X-Series and AX series servos… which I think will basically require a separate U2D2 controller for each type of servo, and then using separate controller packages for each one and tying them together in ROS. This is where I’m really hoping to get some more assistance from someone who really understand ROS.
I’d be really curious to be a part of your OpenManipulator build. I too had some issues interfacing with the OpenCR board, and I may be able to contribute to some solutions there.
The Open Manipulator team will be meeting Monday evening. Send me an email if you are interested in attending. (edward.c.epp@ieee.org). This will be a build meeting focused on problem solving. We are interested in your experiences and will share our’s. I’m not sending out a general invite.
