Implementation of an open-source PROFIBUS interface between ROS and a Panasonic robot

Abstract

Over the last decades, a substantial part of robotics research has focused on path planning algorithms for robotic manipulators. To be generic, these novel algorithms make an abstraction of the underlying robotic hardware: they generate robot motion commands and expect robot state information in a specific format that is independent of the proprietary language in which commercial robots are typically programmed. Therefore, for each commercial robot that needs to be controlled using these algorithms, a driver is required to transform the robot-independent commands to robot-specific commands and vice versa. ROS is an example of an open-source robot software platform in which such drivers can be developed.

The main objective of this thesis is to implement a driver in ROS for a Panasonic robot. Three steps have been taken to achieve this. Firstly, a geometric and kinematic robot model was created for ROS. Secondly, a unidirectional communication between ROS and the robot controller was implemented. Finally, a bidirectional communication was implemented to make the driver robust.

A ROS driver using an open PROFIBUS implementation has been realised. Also, an offline programme for making Panasonic-specific csr files has been made. These files are used to format all the instructions in the Panasonic controller. The driver is based on Panasonic's G2 robot controller, which cannot read in joint positions. Therefore, the thesis proposes to upgrade to a G3 controller with an Ethernet connection as future work.