README.md

Flowstate ROS Bridge

There are two main ways to deploy the flowstate_ros_bridge:

1. Running locally: Build and run the bridge locally, and test it with a physical connection to a Flowstate workcell over your local LAN.
2. Sideloading to Flowstate: Build a Docker image and deploy the process directly as a service container within Flowstate.

Option 1: Running in a local environment

Building the flowstate_ros_bridge locally

Before we can build the flowstate_ros_bridge, you must follow the Getting Started instructions to set up your local SDK-ROS environment.

Source ROS and build the flowstate_ros_bridge within your workspace:

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
cd ~/intrinsic_ws/
colcon build \
  --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  --event-handlers=console_direct+ \
  --packages-up-to flowstate_ros_bridge

Testing the flowstate_ros_bridge (over local LAN)

Start a zenoh router to connect to the in-cluster router of the Flowstate IPC.

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
# Replace $IPC_ADDRESS with the IP address of the IPC
export ZENOH_CONFIG_OVERRIDE='connect/endpoints=["tcp/$IPC_ADDRESS:17447"]'
ros2 run rmw_zenoh_cpp rmw_zenohd

In a separate terminal, ensure flowstate_ros_bridge topics are being published by listing ROS 2 topics.

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp
ros2 topic list --no-daemon

To quickly look at the TFs being published you can export the TF tree using tf2_tools.

source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_zenoh_cpp
ros2 run tf2_tools view_frames

Option 2: Sideloading to Flowstate as a service

Building the flowstate_ros_bridge bundle (Docker)

Similar to how a Flowstate service that uses ROS is built, a couple of scripts are provided to build and bundle the flowstate_ros_bridge. The following steps will assume the sdk-ros repository is in the src folder of your workspace.

In the root of a colcon workspace first set up the docker engine:

./src/sdk-ros/scripts/setup_docker.sh

Then, create the bundle with the build_service_bundle.sh script. This will compile the packages in a docker container and bundle that container in a tarball.

./src/sdk-ros/flowstate_ros_bridge/scripts/build_service_bundle.sh --ros_distro jazzy

Note

Replace jazzy with the target ROS 2 distro for building flowstate_ros_bridge.

The output of this command will be a tarball inside the images directory of the colcon workspace which can be pushed to Flowstate as a new service.

Sideloading the flowstate_ros_bridge to a running Flowstate solution

With a solution open in Flowstate, the generated service bundle can be sideloaded with inctl.

./inctl service install images/flowstate_ros_bridge/flowstate_ros_bridge.bundle.tar --org $ORG --cluster $CLUSTER # replace with your org and cluster

Documentation

• Flowstate Robot State and Sensor ROS Bridge: Explains the translation of internal Flowstate data (joint states, force/torque) into standard ROS 2 messages, with setup and testing instructions.
• Rapid Object Visualization Integration Test: Detailed instructions and CLI options for running the high load 3D mesh marker RViz test (test_rapid_object_visualization.py).