Configuration

Most system configuration is centralized in the testbed_sw repository. This repo contains multiple sub-packages:

testbed_config contains testbed hardware and controller configurations.
testbed_description/ contains the URDF and meshes for the testbed.
testbed_moveit_config/ contains configuration for MoveIt! and Gazebo for the testbed.

Most of the configuration should be set to appropriate default values, with the exception of the Clearpath motor mapping, which must be set for each Testbed site.

Motor mapping

The software must be told explicitly which Clearpath motors correspond to which testbed axes. This is done through a config file in testbed_config called {TESTBED_SITE}_config.yaml where {TESTBED_SITE} is a descriptive name for a given testbed installation.

The file contains four config params which give the Clearpath serial number fo the for axis. For example uwapl_config.yaml is:

#
# Clearpath motor serial number for APL Testbed
#
yaw_sn: 70403992
zaxis_sn: 73003302
corexy_a_sn: 65800963
corexy_b_sn: 66102023

The testbed.launch assumes that the argument testbed_site is set, or as a default will look for an environment variable TESTBED_SITE

!!! We strongly suggest that the environment variable TESTBED_SITE be set automatically on the user account/computer which drives the testbed.

Clearpath motor configuration

The clearpath_config.yaml file sets motor paramters within the Clearpath motor itself. This includes velocity, acceleration, current and jerk limits. As these limits are set in the motors they are absolute limits on motor performance.

ROS Controller configuration and tuning

The testbed_controllers.yaml file describes the motor control interfaces exposed by the Testbed to the ROS Control system. Since the testbed uses position control loops which run within ROS this includes PID parameters for those control loops, as well as joint limits to be enforced by the software controllers.