Universal_Robots_ROS_Driver: Main program on UR robot using ExternalControl URCap stops executing

Summary

Every once in a while, communication between the UR robot and the robot driver is closed. The main program execution on the robot side is stopped (without any notification) and it must be run again (press “Play” button on robot panel).

The program defined in the robot contains only the ExternalControl URCap.

On the PC side, the command executed in the following:

roslaunch ur_robot_driver ur10e_bringup.launch robot_ip:=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX kinematics_config:=/Y/ur10e-Z.yaml

Versions

Robot: UR10e 5.8.0.10253
PC: Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS w/ ROS Kinetic
URCap installed: ExternalControl 1.0.1

Issue details

We are running a non-realtime Linux kernel, this might be related. We have a single PC connected via Ethernet through a switch to the robot. The Linux box is running RViz and processes images obtained from other nodes in the network.

Will update with logs and messages the next time it happens.

Related issues

#182

About this issue

Original URL
State: closed
Created 4 years ago
Comments: 25 (8 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

Thank you both for your answers.

I have modified /etc/security/limits.conf to allow my user to assign higher priorities.

and added a launch-prefix of nice -n -20 in the ur_control.launch file.

Now htop shows a value of PRI=0 and NI=-20 for the ur_driver node.

I will check operation using this configuration to see if problem persists.

guiolpei on Jun 16, 2020