Creating a planner package for your own robot

To start using EXOTica with a new robot we require the configuration files for your robot and some changes to the ROS package that you will be using.

URDF File

EXOTica extracts the dimensions and details of the robot from the robot’s URDF configuration file. To start generating motion plans for your own robot, a URDF file is required.

The URDF file for the lwr_simplified KUKA arm included in the EXOTica examples file will be used throughout these tutorials.

SRDF File

In addition to the URDF file, an SRDF file is also required. This contains semantic information about the robot extracted from the URDF. EXOTica extracts joint dimensions, limits, DH parameters and self collision matrices from the SRDF file. Follow the MoveIt! setup assistant tutorial to generate an SRDF file. The SRDF file for the lwr_simplified KUKA arm included in the source files will be used throughout these tutorials.

CMakeLists.txt & package.xml

Add the following lines to the CMakeLists.txt file of any package that uses EXOTica. In the find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS) section, add

find_package(catkin REQUIRED COMPONENTS exotica_core)

Also, add the following to package.xml for a c++ package:

<depend>exotica_core</depend>

or the following for a python package:

<depend>exotica_python</depend>