Robot Operating System Cookbook

MoveIt! kinematics handling

MoveIt! provides great flexibility for switching the inverse kinematics algorithms using the robot plugins. Users can write their own IK solver as a MoveIt! plugin and switch from the default solver plugin whenever required. The default IK solver in MoveIt! is a numerical Jacobian-based solver.

Compared to the analytic solvers, the numerical solver can take more time to solve IK. The package called IKFast can be used to generate a C++ code for solving IK using analytical methods, which can be used for different kinds of robot manipulators and will perform better for six or fewer degrees of freedom. This C++ code can also be converted into the MoveIt! plugin by using some ROS tools.

Forward kinematics and finding ...