URcaps RS-485 daemon

Package to support relaying the RS-485 communication device in a UR robot to a remote PC. This feature is only supported on the e-series.

Basically, this starts socat to relay the tool communication device to the network socket on port 54321.

Installation

First, you need to put an RS485 URCap into the programs folder of your e-series robot. You'll find the latest version here in the Releases section. Copying can be done either via scp or via using a USB stick. Next, go through these steps to install the URCap in Polyscope.

Usage

Once the daemon is started in Polyscope, establish the connection from a remote machine, using socat:

# Setup your robot IP here:
export ROBOT_IP=192.168.56.101
# Setup the name for the device you wish to create. Make sure that your user can write to that location.
export LOCAL_DEVICE_NAME=/tmp/ttyUR
socat pty,link=${LOCAL_DEVICE_NAME},raw,ignoreeof,waitslave tcp:${ROBOT_IP}:54321

After that you should be able to use the device under ${LOCAL_DEVICE_NAME} (in our case /tmp/ttyUR) just like any local RS-485 tty device.

Use inside a ROS application

The ur_robot_driver has a convenience script wrapping the above socat call. When running the driver, the e-Series launchfiles provide a flag for automatically activating the tool communication. The launchfiles also allow setting up communication parameters on the robot directly.

Acknowledgment

Developed in collaboration between:

  and   .

Supported by ROSIN - ROS-Industrial Quality-Assured Robot Software Components. More information: rosin-project.eu

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 732287.