Forklift

The forklift sold by the youBot store is a perfect tool for testing warehouse logistics algorithms. It can be mounted on a KUKA youBot and does not require any additional power supply.

The youBot Forklift is an open system that has been specially developed for research purposes with an emphasis on robotics. 
The youBot Forklift may only be used by laboratory and research personnel for the performance of special experiments and research tasks. 
Creation of control software for the forklift is part of the research project and is the responsibility of the user/system integrator. 

Hardware specification

Max stroke	250 mm
Max payload	6 kg
Weight without payload	5,5 kg
Min linear speed	3 mm/s
Max linear speed	10 mm/s
Operational voltage	24 V - 48 V
Nominal motor current	4,2 A
Max phase current	6 A
Communication	USB
Forks spacing	140 - 260 mm
Material	frame: aluminium (black anodized) fork: stainless steel

Combination with other youBot accesories

The forklift is designed to work with the Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 laser scanner mounted centrally in the front of the robot on a universal sensor carrier (see figure 7). It is also possible to work with other sensors and accessories as long as the total weight and total power consumption do not exceed the limits of the youBot.

Installing the software

In the following it is assumed that there is a catkin workspace created in

∼/catkin ws

into which the forklift packages are checkout out. If another catkin folder is used just replace it in the following command. To checkout and compile the forklift software run in a command shell:

cd ∼/catkin ws/src
git clone http://github.com/youbot/youbot forklift.git
cd ..
catkin make

This should compile without any errors. It is not possible to install the software via debian packages and apt-get commands yet.

Controlling the forklift

The main way of controlling the forklift