The basic idea of the KUKA youBot API is to represent a robot system as a combination of decoupled functional sub-systems. That is, this API represents manipulator arm and base platform as the combination of several joints. At the same time each joint is defined as a combination of a motor and a gearbox.

There are three main classes in the youBot API that a user should be aware of. These are

• YouBotManipulator class that represents youBot arm as the aggregation of several joints and a gripper

• YouBotBaseclass that represents youBot base platform

• YouBotJoint class that represents joints which make up both the manipulator and the base

Installation

A default method to install youBot software is to use “robotpkg” package. Package descriptions for the youBot API are located at github. The repository has to be checked out into some directory under the robotpkg root directory:

$ cd  ~/pkgmanager/robotpkg/
$ git clone http://github.com/youbot/youbot_packages.git youbot

After all package descriptions have been downloaded and robopkg is bootstrapped, you have to install missing dependencies. First check, what is missing. With

$ cd  ~/pkgmanager/robotpkg/youbot/oodl-youbot
$ make show-depends

you will get a list of all “system dependencies”. If some of them are missing, you have to install them manually.
The driver package called youBot-oodl is located on a git repository and follows the following installation procedure:

$ cd  ~/pkgmanager/robotpkg/youbot/oodl-youbot
$ make checkout
$ make update

After the installation is completed you should be able to see several test programs under ~robotpkg/openrobots/bin directory. If the procedure above did not succeed, please check whether robotpkg related environment variables were set correctly. Please check the youBotmanual for further details on robotpkg and environment settings

Browse source code and direct download

The source code is available directly here:

https://github.com/youbot/youbot_driver

If you followed the installation procedure above, using robotpkg, the source code will be downloaded automatically. In order to get the code directly, without robotpkg, use the following command:

$ git clone https://github.com/youbot/youbot_driver.git

Note that in this case you would have to compile manually via CMake and provide for the required SOEM library yourself.

Usage

Every youBot joint is represented as a youBot::YouBotJointclass in the API. At this stage the API does not make a distinction if it isa base joint which powers a wheel or a manipulator joint. youBot::YouBotBase and youBot::YouBotManipulator are aggregate classes that allow access to a particular joint instance through  youBot::YouBotJoint.

In order to set and get setpoint values or read some sensors from joints, one has to use the youBot::JointData group of classes, e.g. youBot::JointVelocitySetpoint or youBot::JointSensedCurrent. To configure parameters of a joint you have to use the JointParameter group of classes. This could be for instance youBot::MaximumPositioningSpeed. For more detailed information on class and methods please refer to the API documentation.

Support

• get help
• mail to users@youbot-community.org (or click here to subscribe)