davetcoleman
commented
7 years ago Clarification after further investigation... in the baxter.urdf.xacro file gravity is by default enabled for all links. However, on initialization of the simulator, the baxter_emulator node permanently disables gravity on the arm links so as to "eliminate the need for gravity compensation". However, I think this is a poor hack in that, if you disable the robot, gravity will still be disabled.
Is there a reason KDL wasn't used to properly do gravity compensation in the simulated robot?
Gravity is only enabled for the base of the robot and not the arms, see comment. Is there a reason for this? I think it should be enabled again