Week 5

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GSOC Coding Week 5 Progress Report

Week 5: Setting Up with IFRA-Cranfield’s ros2_SimRealRobotControl

This week, after discussions with my mentor, we decided to adopt the IFRA-Cranfield/ros2_SimRealRobotControl framework to structure our exercise. This package provides a highly modular and well-documented base for simulation and real-world robot control using ROS 2 and MoveIt 2, making it a great fit for our migration project.

What I Did This Week

  • Explored IFRA-Cranfield’s ROS 2 framework:
    • Reviewed documentation, tutorials, and architecture design
    • Analyzed how the IFRA_LinkAttacher plugin supports stable object grasping and detachment in Gazebo
  • Evaluated flexibility:
    • Tested how easily robots and end-effectors can be swapped using launch parameters
    • Noted support for many common robot arms, including Universal Robots and ABB
  • Set up the simulation environment:
    • Configured our chosen robot and end-effector
    • Launched and verified the Gazebo world and MoveIt 2 pipeline
    • Confirmed the simulation is functioning end-to-end with proper joint control

This setup now provides a powerful and flexible base for integrating perception and task planning in the coming weeks.

Package Exploring

Robot/Gripper/Gazebo/Moveit setup

Next Steps

Looking ahead to Week 6, I will focus on extending the setup with custom perception and manipulation logic:

  • Integrate camera and perception pipeline for object detection
  • Use IFRA_LinkAttacher for simulated grasping during pick-and-place
  • Connect detection output to a MoveIt 2 task planning sequence
  • Update Gazebo world using assets from the previous exercise
  • Spawn objects in the Gazebo world to enable interaction and testing

📍 Posted from Barcelona, Spain
🧠 Project: Migration and Enhancement of Machine Vision Exercise to ROS2 + MoveIt2
🔗 Repo: ros2_SimRealRobotControl