Bumblebee2 Stereo Camera

The Bumblebee2 manufactured by Point Grey Research is an IEEE-1394 (FireWire) stereo vision camera. It has a base line of 0.12m. Further details about the camera can be found on http://www.ptgrey.com

Hokuyo Laser Range Finder

The URG-04LX-UG01 is a small and lightweight laser range finder with an approx. maximal scanning distance of 5.6m. It has a scan angle of 240° and can acquire scans with a frequency of 10.0Hz. Further details can be found on http://www.hokuyo-aut.jp/

SwissRanger 3D Camera

The Mesa Imaging SwissRanger SR4000 3D Camera is a Time-of-Flight 3D sensor. It utilizes a phase shift principle of emitted and received infrared light to measure depth to the surfaces in the viewing frustum. The sensor has a range between approx. 0.8m and 5m. Further details can be found on www.mesa-imaging.ch

Kinect 3D Camera

The Kinect from Microsoft is a 3D camera, that uses an infrared pattern projector and an infrared camera to infer distance from that captured pattern. It comes with a color web cam, a microphone array, an accelerometer and a tilt unit. It has a detection range of approx. 1.2m to 3.5m.

Remastered Ubuntu Linux

The remastered Ubuntu 10.04 distribution contains all the drivers and applications for controlling the KUKA youBot. Beside these, it is equivalent to the standard distribution and can be used as a bootable live media or for installation. It can be used almost on any PC and is not limited to the onboard PC of the KUKA youBot.

ROS Wrapper for KUKA youBot API

The KUKA youBot API wrapper provides a mapping between messages for the ROS framework and the KUKA youBot API method calls. With this wrapper you can move the base and the arm of the KUKA youBot. You need to send ROS messages as commands. The proprioceptive sensor measurements like odometry and joint angles of the KUKA youBot arm and the wheels are published on ROS topics.

KUKA youBot API

The KUKA youBot API is a C++ highlevel API and driver implementation to control the KUKA youBot. It allows a user to write “joint level” control programs for the youBot mobile base-platform and manipulator arm.
The basic idea of this driver is to represent a robot system as a combination of decoupled functional sub-systems.

Gazebo simulation

This software includes a description of the geometry, kinematics and dynamics of the youBot in URDF format and a ROS package to work with this model within the Gazebo simulation environment. URDF (Unified Robot Description Format) is an XML based format used in ROS (Robot Operating System) for representing robot models.

Webots

Real-time simulation of the KUKA youBot in Webots. The robot model contains all DOFs of the robot with an accurate model of the physics, in particular realistic omnidirectional wheels. It can be easily extended by cameras, Hokuyo or Kinect sensors, modified for other configurations and controlled from the Webots API (C/C++/Java/Python/Matlab/URBI) or from ROS.

KUKA youBot kinematics, dynamics and 3D model

In this section you can find a specification of the kinematic chain of the KUKA youBot, its dynamic properties and related 3D models. The 3D model is given in the following formats: .blend (Blender), .dae (Collada), and .stl. 

V-REP

Realistic and efficient simulation of the KUKA youBot in the Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform (V-REP). The robot model, kinematically and dynamically simulated, behaves in a very realistic fashion, especially the omnidirectional wheels (no shaking nor jittering, even on uneven ground). It can be customized and modified at will, and interfaced via C/C++/Lua or any external application.

youBot ROS Navigation Stack

This software includes a ROS navigation stack adapted for the KUKA youBot. It provides local navigation and obstacle avoidance functionalities based on the laser scanner readings. Here you find step-by-step instructions on how to get this ROS stack running on the youBot.

Tower of Hanoi Perception

The Tower of Hanoi perception library provides support for object detection in context of the "Tower of Hanoi" contest taking place during the European Robotics Week in December 2011. This library consists of a set of ROS nodes that allow to detect colored cubes as well as markers based on the ARToolKit.

youBot ROS Inverse Kinematics

This software includes a ROS inverse kinematics stack adapted for the KUKA youBot. It provides a closed form IK, which only calculates the end configuration of the joints based on the actual position of the arm. The idea is based on the inverse kinematics of the Yasukawa Motoman L-3 from Craigs book.  The input data is a 6D-Pose consisting of the x-y-z coordinates and the roll-pitch-yaw orientation of the gripper. Here you find step-by-step instructions on how to get this ROS stack running on the youBot.

Android Application

The Android application is used to remotely control the KUKA youBot via an Android smartphone . You can control the KUKA youBot base by selecting different controller modes, like "shift mode", "acceleration mode" etc. It uses the BlueZ library and a Bluetooth interface is also required. Two applications must be installed. On the one hand the application on your Android smartphone. On the other hand the youBot Android client on the PC, which controls the youBot base.

Hello_World_Demo

The hello_world_demo is an example application to show you how to use th KUKA youBot API, for writing your own applications. You can use all the sources in this directory as a template. Both the KUKA youBot base and the youBot manipulator are shown in this example.

Joypad Application

The Joypad Application is used to remotely control the KUKA youBot via joypad. You can control the KUKA youBot base as well as the KUKA youBot arm. It uses the SDL (Simple Direct Media Layer) library, so that  any joypad can be used, which is detected by the operating system. The configuration of the controller are done by a configuration file. This increases the flexible usability of the joypad controller.