Analysis and Development of a ROS-based Trajectory Planner for Robotic Applications

This thesis was born from the need to unify the various brand-specific robotic simulation software, programmed in different programming languages, into one user-friendly environment able to simulate robotic tasks, define trajectories and introduce new kinematics regardless the manipulator's brand. To achieve the given objectives the Robot Operating System, ROS, was exploited. In particular, ROS' motion planning framework MoveIt was employed and both programming languages offered by the platform, C++ and Python, as well as different motion planners, among which the OMPL library and the Pilz Industrial Motion Planner, were tested. The obtained simulated robotic trajectories were exported to the real manipulator in two ways: The first by saving the trajectory points, to be later taught to the robot, as a ROS trajectory message containing the joints' position, velocity and acceleration values in a text file; the second by connecting the ROS computer to the manipulator's controller cabinet for directly sending the trajectories planned with MoveIt to the robot's controllers as ROS messages. This thesis was developed in collaboration with the IMA Automation division of IMA S.p.A..