UR ros driver headless mode needs restart once remote control is changed

ROS
1

Polyscope version: 5.17

Ros version: humble

UR driver: recent commit

Scenario:

When the robot is in remote control mode, starting ur driver using headless mode puts the robot to running and responsive for moveit control commands.

When the robot is changed to manual and then back to automatic, then remote control, robot goes to normal mode. Tried using resend robot program service to bring back to program running but it is not working. It forces us to restart the driver. This scenario works properly in URsim but not on actual robot.

Request:

What to do for re-establishing that connection to make robot responsive to moveit control commands while changing to manual and back to remote control after being connected for the first time

Use case:

Need will arise to do teaching which requires robot to be in manual mode. Once teaching is done and when robot put back to remote control, driver should recognise that and make robot responsive to control commands.

2

This is a drawback of the headless mode, yes.

If you want to switch between teaching and external control frequently, a more suitable approach would be to use local control mode and create a teach pendant program on containing the external control node ad described here.

In the long run we plan to support switching also in headless mode more, but for now that’s the only workaround I can suggest.