Franka Cartesian Impedence Controller

First, we need to install libfranka to communicate with the robot. The library is publicly available and can be installed in the $HOME directory using the following commands:

cd $HOME
sudo apt install build-essential cmake git libpoco-dev libeigen3-dev
git clone --recursive https://github.com/frankaemika/libfranka
cd libfranka
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build .

In the next step, we install franka ros (we assume that you have set up a real-time kernel with ROS) for communication with the robot:

cd $HOME
mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
cd catkin_ws
source /opt/ros/<ros-distro>/setup.sh
catkin_init_workspace src
git clone --recursive https://github.com/frankaemika/franka_ros src/franka_ros
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro <ros-distro> -y --skip-keys libfranka

Finally, we can install the custom controller used by the Platonics in the Robothon 2023 using the following:

cd src/franka_ros
git clone https://github.com/platonics-delft/franka_impedance_controller.git
cd ../..
source /opt/ros/<ros-distro>/setup.bash
catkin build -DMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DFranka_DIR:PATH=~/libfranka/build

You can now run the controller using:

roslaunch franka_impedance_controller cartesian_variable_impedance_controller.launch robot_ip:=ROBOT_IP load_gripper:=True

To run the gazebo simulation:

• To setup gazebo, go in your workspace:

source devel/setup.bash

roscd franka_impedance_controller

python3 setup_gazebo.py

To launch the controller:

roslaunch franka_gazebo panda.launch x:=-0.5 world:=$(rospack find franka_gazebo)/world/stone.sdf controller:=cartesian_variable_impedance_controller rviz:=true