Robot Operating System Cookbook

URDF modeling for an industrial robot

There are a few guidelines for URDF design and modeling that are followed by ROS-I:

• Modular Design: The URDF design should be modularized using xarco macros, which can be used in a complex and large URDF modeling without any difficulty.
• Reference Frame: The base_link frame should be the first link, and tool-zero (tool0) should be the end-effector link.
• Joint Conventions: The orientation value of each robot joint is limited to single rotation only. For example, out of the three, orientation-roll, pitch, and yaw values, only one value will be used there.
• Collision Awareness: The inverse kinematics (IK) planners used in the industrial robot are collision aware, therefore the URDF model must have a precise ...