Adding extra axis control on the ROS driver

Hello,

I’m trying to add a linear slider onto which my UR5e arm is attached in my lab. I am using this package with the UR5e robot arm in Ubuntu 18.04 + ROS melodic along with a ROS driver for the servo motor controlling the position of the slider. How should I go about passing on the 7DoF solution from MoveIt Planner onto the ur_driver since the driver could take only the 6DoF solution?

I have used the latest ur_driver present in the Universal Robots GitHub repo:

Currently we have the arm and the slider working separately through their respective ROS drivers.We have created a simulated environment in which the MoveIt! gave us the 7 DoF solution.I’m not sure how to proceed with these.Any guidance on this would be really helpful!

Have you solve this somehow? I am in very similar situation now.

The following are some of my suggestions:
Create multiple move groups in moveit. First move group will control the six of the joints and the other move group will control the newly added joint. By this way you can specify different controller sets for different move groups.
Second option is not to include the last joint to moveit. Just include six of the joints and after the robot arm movement is completed take control of the system and actuate the seventh joint and need basis through your own code