Franka documentation and operating the Pandas¶

Franka Documentation¶

• The Panda User Handbook attachment:pandaUserHandbook.pdf (safety rules, setting/starting up, basic use through the web interface)
• The Franka Control Interface & ROS packages: https://frankaemika.github.io/
• The dedicated LAAS robots wiki page (basic

Misc things¶

• The PC must have a Linux kernel with the PREEMT_RT option
• To have access to this option, you must belong to the unix group "realtime"

Start the pandas:¶

https://frankaemika.github.io/docs/getting_started.html

1. before turning on check on the black button and red button.
- red button must be unpressed.
- black button must be pressed.
- turn on the robot cpu. It's on the back. Panda 1 is the lower one.
- yellow light will blink until its on.
- when it's on, light remains constant.

2. Access the robot server interface: https://172.17.1.2/desk/
- accept the risks
- robot information on IP and credentials are in: https://wiki.laas.fr/robots/Panda
- when accessing the server, joints are locked. unlock them. take care it can move a bit.
- it changes the color of the light to white - unlocked but not accept command motion.

3. To move the robot, release the black safety button. The light will turn blue - accepting command motion.

4. Clone mp2_ros (this is melodic) repository to a catkin src folder.
- make it
- source it

5. Run demo

- this will start the admittance controller and trajectory action server at the current position

roslaunch admittance_joint_trajectory_controller action.launch robot_ip:=172.17.1.2 load_gripper:=false

- force 0.
- you can play with stiffness to check on different behavior. be careful, it can get unstable.
-- some time force, vel, pos, reach a threshold and the robot stop for safety reasons. you can lock and unlock the joints again in the Desk interface

-you can now play a trajectory

rosbag play -d 1 straight_line.bag

-this file is in the documents tab of this repository

6 - turning off
- push black button
- move to a safe position manually (pushing the two buttons in the end-effector and guiding)
- lock the joint in Desk interface
- shutdown in the interface- wait until it says you can turn off the cpu
- press red button

Using your own laptop¶

First you will need a real-time kernel to be able to communicate with the pandas (PREEMPT_RT).

The procedure is described here: https://frankaemika.github.io/docs/installation_linux.html
More informations in french can be found here: https://bidouilledebian.wordpress.com/2018/05/31/compiler-son-noyau/
The second link might actually be better.

Note: avoid the use of the fakeroot command if you have errors.

You will also need to configure the network (ethernet).

- In the ipv4 tab, choose manual configuration.
- Adress = 172.17.1.1
- Mask = 255.255.255.0

That's all.

You can ping the robot's IP to see if you are able to communicate with it.
- Panda1 = 172.17.1.2
- Panda1 = 172.17.1.3

Troubleshooting¶

If you have this error:

linux libfranka: UDP receive: Timeout

This means a firewall is blocking some UDP packets (see https://frankaemika.github.io/docs/troubleshooting.html).
You can disable the firewall (should be definitive) by using this command:

sudo ufw disable

Check if it is disabled:

sudo ufw status