Bringup the driver

Quick test without a robot

Before setting up the physical robot, you can verify your installation using mock hardware — a software simulation of the hardware interface that requires no network connection and no VAL3 application running on the robot.

source install/setup.bash

ros2 launch staubli_bringup launch_robot_control.launch.py \
    robot_model:=tx2_60l

Note

use_mock_hardware:=true is the default, so no extra argument is needed.

Verify that the hardware interface and controllers are active:

# In another terminal, source the workspace and run:
ros2 control list_hardware_interfaces
ros2 control list_controllers

You should see joint_state_broadcaster listed as active, and all six joint position, velocity, and effort state interfaces as available.

Note

The mock hardware uses a simple dynamic model: state interfaces (position, velocity) are computed from the last command received on the corresponding command interface. No UDP packets are sent or received. This is sufficient to verify your installation and test controller logic, but does not reflect real robot dynamics.

Once this test passes, proceed with the physical robot setup below.

Setup the robot

Follow steps in Installation VAL3 server to install the VAL3 application.

Start the VAL3 application on the robot

Load and run the application using the robot pendant:

Goto VAL3 > Stockages > Disk
Select ros2_server and load the application
Goto VAL3 > Mémoire
Select ros2_server and run

Launch the ROS2 driver

Display robot in Rviz

Connect to the robot using the driver and display its current pose in Rviz:

source install/setup.bash

ros2 launch staubli_bringup launch_robot_control.launch.py \
    robot_model:=tx2_60l \
    use_mock_hardware:=false \
    gui:=true

In case you have not set the IP address of your robot (J204) to 192.168.0.254, you can provide the actual value as a launch argument:

source install/setup.bash

ros2 launch staubli_bringup launch_robot_control.launch.py \
    robot_model:=tx2_60l \
    robot_ip:=<ip_of_your_robot> \
    use_mock_hardware:=false \
    gui:=true

Check available state / command interfaces

You can use the ros2_control CLI interface to introspect the state and command interfaces provided by the driver:

ros2 control list_hardware_interfaces

Warning

The <joint_name>/velocity command interfaces are provided, but the internal implementation is not yet finalized. For now, the HW will reject the request for joint velocity control mode.

Note

The <joint_name>/acceleration command interfaces are a by-product of providing joint limits to the Joint Limiter. It is not an actual command mode and if you try to use it, the HW will reject the request. Hopefully, a more user-friendly way of setting the max acceleration parameter will be included in future releases of ros2_control, at which point this interface type will be removed.

What’s next?

See the Demo Applications section for some examples using the Staubli ROS2 driver.