iTaSC quick start

Overview

The framework is ordered following a OROCOS-ROS approach and consists of 1 meta-stack:

• itasc: This ROS unary stack serving as a meta-stack, it's purpose is to keep the framework stacks together

This meta-stack consists of following stacks:

• itasc_core: This ROS unary stack contains the core functionality of iTaSC: the scene and template (headers) for all itasc component types (solvers, virtual kinematic chains, controller/constraints, robots, objects)
• itasc_solvers: Contains a number of solver packages for iTaSC
• itasc_robots_objects: Contains a number of robot and object packages for iTaSC
• itasc_tasks: Contains a number of task packages for iTaSC (combination of virtual kinematic chains and constraint/controllers)

Each package contains the following subdirectories:

• src/ containing the source code of the components (C++)
• cpf/ containing the property files for the components and FSM's
• scripts/ containing the FSM's and components in a LUA implementation (eg. Supervisors)
• launch/ containing eventual ROS launch files

Installation instructions

Dependencies

• Orocos toolchain 2.5.0 and up
• kdl_lua of the rtt_geometry stack
• Orocos Kinematics and Dynamics Library 0.2.3 and up
• Eigen 2
• rFSM
• ROS Electric: optional unless you want to use the PR2, but highly recommended: build system and tools like rospack find are practical and are used in the example scripts

See also the installation instructions of the examples for a step-by-step installation guide.

Compiling from source

• git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/itasc.git
• git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/itasc_core.git
• git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/itasc_robots_objects.git
• git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/itasc_solvers.git
• git clone http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/itasc_tasks.git

Setup

It is strongly recommended that you add the following to a setup script or your .bashrc

• Make sure that all packages are added to you ROS_PACKAGE_PATH variable
• Source env.sh in the orocos_toolchain stack
• Set the LUA_PATH variable:

export LUA_PATH="/path_to_rFSM/?.lua;/path_to_ocl/lua/modules/?.lua;/path_to_kdl_lua/?.lua;$LUA_PATH"

Make

rosmake itasc

This will build all itasc code, except for the robot models. Compile the ones you need yourself!

Design Workflow

Multiple files should be created or adapted to create a new application, a good workflow could be:

1. Make a list of all tasks that have to be executed
2. Draw the kinematic loops for each task (see also Comanipulation Demo)
3. Draw the component layout of your application
4. Draw the behavior of your application (coordination of the behavior at runtime), this will afterwards be implemented in the composite_task_fsm.lua and the running_task_fsm.lua files. Consult 'subFSM's of the running state' of the iTaSC user guide for more information.
5. Create or download all necessary packages (tasks, robots, objects, solvers...)
   1. Create the components (computational part)
   2. Create the skills (FSM: coordination and configurational part), but leave the sub state machines dictating behavior at runtime for now (eg. running_taskname_fsm.lua).
6. Create the FSM on the iTaSC level: itasc_configuration.lua
7. Create the FSM on the application level
8. Check, create or adapt the configuration files (.cpf) of your components.
9. Create a deploy script: run.ops and run.sh (after this step, you can test that your application gets to the running state, without errors)
10. Create the FSMs that coordinate the behavior at runtime
    1. on itasc level: composite_task_fsm.lua
    2. on task level (for each task): running_taskname_fsm.lua