Hi all,
I am working with a UR10e and a robotiq 2F-85 gripper connected directly to the UR wrist. My goal is to control the arm and gripper via a single ROS machine and python scripts, apologies I am a beginner.
I have already been able to control the UR10e via ROS-noetic using the external control ur_cap as outlined in this repository ur_ros_driver. I am not using an rtde kernel however because in the past this has also not enabled me to connect to the gripper. I now want to additionally control the robotiq gripper in my system and realize that all robotiq gripper drivers (robotiq repository and clearpath) I have found are relying on python2.7 packages which causes all sorts of issues. I was able to control the gripper using the pendant and the urcap for the robotiq gripper however I have seen that if externally controlled it is best to uninstall this urcap and use the rs485 instead. According to this tutorial ur tool robotiq I got multiple errors when attempting to roslaunch robotiq_2f_gripper_control robotiq_action_server.launch because scripts like robotiq_2F_gripper.py would not be found despite being in the same file as another launched python script and individual packages like pymodbus.client.server do not exist in the same format anymore.
I am flexible and willing to migrate to ROS2 (though robotiq does not seem to support this) or any other kinds of configurations but I am not sure where to start. I am somewhat confused about modbus/TCP, socket connections, UR tool I/O etc. but do believe that some attempts I have made are conflicting. What is the best way to currently control the robotiq gripper on a UR10e externally? All help is appreciated, thank you in advance!
Have you ever tried the UR-RTDE library ? There are some function available to control the gripper:
https://sdurobotics.gitlab.io/ur_rtde/guides/guides.html#use-with-robotiq-gripper
Also thos DOF articles may be interesting for you:
https://dof.robotiq.com/discussion/1962/programming-options-ur16e-2f-85