Implications of installing MotoPlus on controller for non-ROS users

Question

Hi everyone,

I want to control a Yaskawa motoman gp7 robot arm with ROS. For that I am following this tutorial on how to install the necessary software on the arm's controller. In my case the GP7 has a YRC1000 with a Standard Pendant.

The thing is, I am not the only user of the arm, it is setup there for different users to experiment and such using other control methods such as programming with the teach pendant.

Will installing MotoPlus have any effect on the "standard" functioning of the pendant? Will the installation impact the behavior of other control methods?

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Originally posted by gas_patxo on ROS Answers with karma: 3 on 2022-11-07

Post score: 0

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Original comments

Comment by gvdhoorn on 2022-11-07:
Btw: this question would probably have been better asked on the Discussion board of ros-industrial/motoman on Github.

It's technically not a ROS question, as it's about MotoPlus and Yaskawa Motoman robots.

Comment by gas_patxo on 2022-11-08:
Got it, thank you. I decided to post it here because in the mentioned tutorial it is written:

Please ask about problems and questions regarding this tutorial on answers.ros.org. Don't forget to include in your question the link to this page, the versions of your OS & ROS, and also add appropriate tags.

Answer 1

Will installing MotoPlus [..]

First: on a YRC1000, you would not be "installing MotoPlus". MotoPlus (the SDK at least) is a development environment you'd install on a Windows PC. The runtime environment is already present on the YRC1000. The only thing you would do is install MotoROS. That's a MotoPlus application, and the part which runs on the YRC1000.

Will installing MotoPlus have any effect on the "standard" functioning of the pendant?

No.

Will the installation impact the behavior of other control methods?

No.

MotoROS1 uses a regular INFORM job to control when the ROS node would have control over the robot. If that job isn't active, no external control is possible.

MotoROS1 will attempt to start the job though if the ROS node asks it to. But it can only do that if the controller is in remote mode (ie: the Programming Pendant is not the single point of control).

All other INFORM programs can still run as normal and the robot would not start moving "suddenly" just because a ROS node wants it to. You have to actively allow MotoROS1 to take control.

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Originally posted by gvdhoorn with karma: 86574 on 2022-11-07

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

Post score: 1