TaskIt

ROS package for abstracting a robotic manipulation domain and manipulation action primitives for discrete task planning. Currently supports only the Franka Emika Panda manipulator, however the C++ library is abstracted to support any manipulator.

NOTE: Not affiliated with MoveIt, however this package heavily utilizes MoveIt for low-level motion planning and visualization.

Built-In Features

Action primitives:

• Stow (move the arm to the default configuration)
• SimpleGrasp (Grab an object)
• SimpleRelease (Release an object)
• Transit [All/Up/Side] (Moves the end effector to either an empty location or to the pre-condition grasping pose if an object is in the location)
• Transport (Moves the end effector to an empty location if it is grabbing an object)
• Linear Transit [All/Up/Side] (Transit with a safe linear approach and retreat)
• Linear Transport (Transport with a safe linear approach and retreat)

Config file abstraction for:

• Discrete locations
• Workspace collision objects
• Manipulatable objects
• Other relevant properties for the working manipulator

Creating a container

To create your container, run: docker compose up

The docker compose file automatically builds and caches the image. The root directory of taskit is mounted inside ws/src/taskit in the container so changes made to the local repository are reflected inside the container and visa versa.

To spin up a container and rebuild the image: docker compose up --build

Running the manipulator node

Once inside the container, you can launch the manipulator node with roslaunch taskit manipulator_node.launch Use the following flags for your specific experiment:

• sim:=<true, false>: true (default) for running an experiment in simulation only, false for running an experiment with a real robot connected
• pose_tracker:=<simulation, vrpn>: simulation (default) for no external pose tracking/update information, vrpn for observing pose information from Vicon Tracker
• config_directory:=<my_config_directory>: Specify a directory where the environment.yaml, workspace.yaml, and objects.yaml files appear. Defaults to config