Chapter 11. ROS for Industrial Robots

In the previous chapter, we have seen some advanced concepts in ROS-MoveIt! Until now, we have been discussing mainly about interfacing personal and research robots with ROS, but one of the main areas where robots are extensively used are industries. Does ROS support industrial robots? Do any of the companies use ROS for the manufacturing process? The ROS-Industrial packages comes with a solution to interface industrial robot manipulators to ROS and controlling it using the power of ROS, such as MoveIt!, Gazebo, RViz, and so on.

In this chapter, we will discuss the following topics:

• Understanding ROS-Industrial packages

• Installing ROS-Industrial packages in ROS

• Block diagram of ROS-Industrial packages

• Creating URDF for an industrial robot

• Creating the MoveIt! interface for an industrial robot

• Installing ROS-Industrial packages of Universal robotic arms

• Understanding MoveIt! configuration of a universal robotic arm

• Working with MoveIt! configuration of ABB robots...