Package Summary

Drivers for: 1) ATI sensors with the Controller FT system. 2) HE 6x6 Force plate from AMTI.

Author: Advait Jain, Cressel Anderson, Hai Nguyen, Advisor: Prof. Charlie Kemp, Lab: Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech
License: new BSD
Source: git https://code.google.com/p/gt-ros-pkg.hrl/ (branch: master)

Contents

Commands
ROS API

This package provides python drivers and ROS nodes for ATI nano 25 (with ATI provided controller F/T system), and AMTI HE6x6 force plate. The standalone driver for ATI nano 25 is in src/force_torque/FTSensor.py, and for the AMTI force plate src/force_torque/AMTIForce2.py .

To run the ATI FT ROS node first run force_torque_relay then force_torque_poller. force_torque_poller continuously receives data and sets it on the associated force_torque_relay. force_torque_relay takes this data then broadcasts it to all client. In this case, an intermediary force_torque_relay is required because force_torque_poller needs to poll the sensor extremely quickly without arbitrary delay. Having force_torque_relay makes this extremely difficult.

The force plate server, however, can be launched with just force_plate_server. Interfacing with it client side can be done using the same class FTClient.py (force_torque_client)

Commands

force_torque_poller and force_torque_relay both takes a "--name" parameter for the user given name of the FT device. It is not important what these are, but it's important that the names given to these two nodes match. This parameter is then used mainly to for the two to communicate via ROS. force_torque_poller takes a --path argument to find the system path to the given FT device.

To actually get data follow the sample code in force_torque_client's main block.

Sample launch sequence:

./force_torque_relay --name=ft1 $ ./force_torque_poller --name=ft1 --path=/dev/robot/fingerFT1

ROS API

FT_poller_ + USER_GIVEN_NAME: grabs data from ATI FT devices and posts results to !FTRelay using FloatArrayService.
FTRelay_ + USER_GIVEN_NAME: provides FloatArrayService service, publishes FloatArray messages (from hrl_lib.msg).
AMTIForceServer: grab sensor data from AMTI force plate, then publish this using FloatArray messages (from hrl_lib.msg)