Idem, but using a pre-built Docker image

The driver is also available as a pre-built Docker image, which can be used to test the driver without going through the build process. The image is available on GitHub Container Registry here.

Pre-requisites

First, make sure you have Docker installed on your system:

docker --version

Then, install rocker, a tool to run ROS applications in Docker containers with support for hardware access and GUI forwarding:

sudo apt install python3-rocker

Retrieve and test the Docker image

Pull the Docker image (pick a version) from the registry:

export IMG_TAG=<TAG_NAME>  # e.g., 0.1.0
docker pull ghcr.io/icube-robotics/staubli_driver_ros2:${IMG_TAG}

Run the demo with a mock robot (no connection to a physical robot) to make sure everything is working:

export IMG_TAG=<TAG_NAME>  # e.g., 0.1.0
rocker --net=host --devices /dev/dri --x11 \
    ghcr.io/icube-robotics/staubli_driver_ros2:${IMG_TAG} \
    ros2 launch staubli_bringup launch_demo.launch.py \
        robot_model:=tx2_60l \
        use_mock_hardware:=true

Note

The rocker command below uses the following options:

--net=host: Uses host networking to allow communication with the robot without additional configuration
--x11: Enables X11 forwarding for GUI applications
--devices /dev/dri: Mounts Direct Rendering Infrastructure for Intel hardware-accelerated graphics

Connect to the physical robot

Setup as usual (VAL3 application running on the robot, E-stop released, etc.) and run the demo with the real robot:

export IMG_TAG=<TAG_NAME>  # e.g., 0.1.0
rocker --net=host --devices /dev/dri --x11 \
    ghcr.io/icube-robotics/staubli_driver_ros2:${IMG_TAG} \
    ros2 launch staubli_bringup launch_demo.launch.py  \
        use_mock_hardware:=false \
        robot_model:=<ROBOT_MODEL> \
        robot_ip:=<ROBOT_IP_ADDRESS>