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I'm newbie in ROS, I've just started to learn it, and I wondering if I can use ROS to control a real robotic arm like this one: DIY Robot Arm Kit Educational Robotic Claw Set (at gearbest), or the Ebotics BXARM01 robotic arm.

Can I use ROS to control it?

Note: I don't know if control is right word here because I'm not sure what I'm doing when I create a node in ROS that reads from sensors and sends instructions to actuator.


Originally posted by Elric on ROS Answers with karma: 71 on 2018-10-28

Post score: 0

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It is perfectly possible to control this arm with ROS, it won't be the most smooth or precise arm in the world but I'm guessing that's what you expected anyway!

In order for any robot arm to be controlled by ROS (MoveIt within ROS most likely) there needs to be a hardware interface that can tell ROS the positions of each of its joints and also control the position of the joints so they follow a given trajectory over time. The arm you linked to can do the second half of this if you were to modify the firmware so it was ROS compatible, however the servos it's using don't have any position feedback they're open loop. In this case you can assume that the arm is in the position the servos are being commanded to go to, this is an assumption but should be find for a toy robot like this.

If you're not familiar with MoveIt I recommend having a look at the documentation here and working through the first few tutorials. Once you're confident working with simulated robots, then you could start planning integrating this new hardware.

Hope this helps.


Originally posted by PeteBlackerThe3rd with karma: 9529 on 2018-10-28

This answer was ACCEPTED on the original site

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Original comments

Comment by peng cheng on 2021-07-13:
Hi, I guess there could be some example codes about robot arms, could you give me a simple one which is good for beginners?

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