We are planning to create a working model of the uarm in gazebo. The uarm is a open-source robotic arm which was created by uFactory and founded through Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ufactory/uarm-put-a-miniature-industrial-robot-arm-on-your.

Our plan (3. and 4. are bonuses if we have enough time):

1. Create a urdf-file from the CAD-model of the uarm and possibly merge or remove some parts to optimize it for the simulation. DONE
2. Create plugins to control the arm. DONE
3. Add a endeffector to the arm. DONE
4. Connect the arm to ROS.

The following installation is tested against Gazebo 1.9.5.

1. Clone this repository.
2. Go into the directory "uarm-in-gazebo"
3. mkdir build && cd build
4. cmake ../src/
5. make
6. cd ..

After the installation you can start the simulation with the following command:

launch_simulation.bash

or

launch_simulation.zsh

Now you can use UarmPub to send commands to the uarm. It's possible to send an angle in radian to a specific joint:

build/UarmPub joint_name angle

Controllable joints are left_base_shoulder_joint, left_base_arm_joint and center_table_mount. Alternatively you can give the UarmPub a specific pose that the uarm should take:

build/UarmPub pose

At the moment the only available pose is home_pose which gives all three joints the angle 0.

Also you can start another world simulation where you can attach or dettach a small box with a suction cup. Therefor you have to execute the following command:

launch_simulation_with_box.bash

or

launch_simulation_with_box.zsh

Now you have to navigate the suction cup over the box. You can use the following commands:

build/UarmPub "left_base_shoulder_joint" -0.6

and

build/UarmPub "left_base_arm_joint" -0.9

The suction cup should be over the box now. To attach the box to the suction cup, you can use the following command:

build/UarmPub "attach" 1

After you attached the box it is possible to move the arm like described above and the box should be at the suction cup all time. If you want to dettach the box, you have to use the following command:

build/UarmPub "attach" 0