UFactory xArm6 Review & ROS Integration

2022-02-23 19:14:00 / 0

Robotic Manipulators (RM) are a prominent symbol of robotics and have accelerated the growth of industries by many folds. It has become a norm for large organizations to utilize RM to increase their efficiency and expand their operations. The application area for RM in industries range from sorting systems, to assembly lines, fabrication lines, welding parts, painting things, machining metals, etc. RM are not limited to industries but are used commercially as well as domestically, eg inventory management, surgical operations, task assistance, etc.

Today, we will be looking into the xARM6 robotic arm manufactured by UFACTORY . The technical specifications of the arm are given at MYBOTSHOP xARM . The xARM6 is a unique low cost, light weight robotic arm that has extensive features available ranging from multi input/output ports to changeable AC/DC control box. An especially attractive feature is its carbon fiber body. All the packages of xARM6 are open source. Following are the links to the manuals for the xARM6.

For the gripper manuals:

The download to the software interface are available at:

The download to the software development kits are available at:

The 3D models for the robotic arms are available at:

Finally, the ROS control packages are available at:

ROSE
ROS2

xARM6 ROS Installation (Ubuntu 18.04) for Real Robot

The first step to using ROS with the xARM6 is the installation of ROS melodic in to your computer system. To this follow the steps provided in ROS-melodic . The next step is to create a catkin workspace via:

mkdir xARM6_ws
cd xARM6_ws
mkdir src
cd src

The next step is to clone the xARM6 ROS via:

git clone https://github.com/xArm-Developer/xarm_ros.git --recursive
cd xarm_ros
git pull
git submodule sync
git submodule update --init --remote

Update the dependencies of the package.

rosdep update
rosdep check --from-paths . --ignore-src --rosdistro melodic

In case of dependencies not available, simply run

rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src --rosdistro melodic -y

Build and source the package:

catkin_make

Incase some ros packages are missing run sudo apt-get install ros-melodic- package_name

source ~/xARM6_ws/devel/setup.bash

Run rviz via:

roslaunch xarm6_moveit_config realMove_exec.launch robot_ip:=192.168.1.***

The ip will be written in the backside of the xARM6 control box .

Fig. The left gif is the xARM6 being operated by MoveIt control. The right gif is the rviz visualization. Initially a final goal state is given, the orange xARM6, then a transparent xARM6 moves to the final state from the initial state which is the planning algorithm in action, and finally, the actual xARM6 moves both in Rviz as well as the real-robot .

An in-depth explanation is available at the native repository of xARM6 ROS of how to run the robotic arm in simulation.

Comparative Analysis


model
Company	UFACTORY xArm	Franka Emika Panda	UNIVERSAL ROBOTS UR3e
surgery	host PC	host PC	host pc \| Teach pendant
ROSControl	plug & play	Configuration required	Configuration required
I/O ports	Multi	None	Multi
sensor integration	Available	None	Available
software development	Fast & straight forward	Minimum configuration required	Substantial configuration required
prices	Low	middle	High

Discussion

When we talk about return on investment, robotic arms pay for themselves in short amount of time. The xARM6 is the quickest of all in this due to its stunningly low price. Compared to the other robotic arms, its arm weighs about 12mm with a 5kg payload capacity making it ideal for mounting on other mobile platforms. It can also be ordered with a DC control box simplifying wiring for unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). It does have a shorter reach of 700mm compared to PANDA's 855mm and UR10e's 1300mm. The interfacing as can be see from the table is much simpler compared to the others when it comes to ROS and is much faster to setup. An additional unique feature it has going for itself is the integration of blocky, a block based coding scheme. All in all, the xARM6 is a worth while robotic arm considering its cost, wiring, configuration, and setup.

Note:

Please email at support@mybotshop.de in case you find any incorrect statements, facts, typos, or if you think some additional information should be added. The information presented represents the authors opinion based on experience and does not reflect the company's interest.

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UFactory xArm6 Review & ROS Integration

xARM6 ROS Installation (Ubuntu 18.04) for Real Robot

Comparative Analysis

Discussion

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