Installation VAL3 server

Prerequisites

Staubli robot and CS9 controller with firmware version 8.x.x or higher.

Connect to the robot

  1. Connect the J204 Ethernet port to the remote controller PC (ROS2-side)

  2. Setup your IP address as 192.168.0.1 with mask 255.255.255.0

  3. Make sure you can communicate with the robot at 192.168.0.254:

ping 192.168.0.254

Install required addons

In order to use the ROS2 driver, you will need the following addons :

  • motion

  • velocity

Note

The addons alter and advCtrlFunctions are also used, but they come shipped with the robot. However, if the alter or advCtrlFunctions license are in demo mode, the code will stop working after 2 hours. Although this should not be an issue for development and testing, you might want to get a full license from Staubli for long-term use.

To install an addon, download the compiled library from the MyStaubli portal website:

  1. Log in to your Staubli account.

  2. Navigate to the Software Download Center.

  3. Select your controller version in Stäubli Robotics Controls

  4. Download the desired addon.

../_images/screenshot_download_addon.png

Fig. 2 Example of addon download page on MyStaubli portal.

Then, copy the library (<addon>.so) to the /usr/app folder of the robot using FTP and reboot the robot controller.

Hint

By default, the usr/app folder does not exist. In that case, use FTP (e.g., FileZilla) to create the folder first.

../_images/screenshot_transfert_addon_to_CS9.png

Fig. 3 If you use FileZilla, it should look like this once the addons are transferred.

Install VAL3 application

You can upload the VAL3 app to the robot controller using the provided script:

# Source Staubli driver ROS2 workspace
source install/setup.bash

# Upload VAL3 app to robot controller
ros2 run staubli_robot_driver upload_val3_server.py

Alternatively, you can transfer the application manually using an FTP client (e.g., FileZilla). To do so, copy the content of the staubli_robot_driver/val3/userapp folder to the /usrapp folder on the robot controller.

Setup the sockets

From the robot pendant, create the necessary sockets:

  1. Goto E/S > Socket

  2. Select Socket UDP and press (+) to add the following sockets:

Socket type

Socket name

Timeout

Fin de string

Port

IP remote

UDP

control

-1

10 (linux)

11000

192.168.0.1

UDP

diagnostics

-1

10 (linux)

11001

192.168.0.1

Hint

If your PC, i.e., ROS2 driver-side, IP address is different than 192.168.0.1, change the IP remote field accordingly.