Shadow Robot
ROS Software Maintainer: Ugo Cupcic <ugo@shadowrobot.com, contact@shadowrobot.com>
Contents
Shadow is one of the longest running robotics companies in the UK. We have been developing robots and other unusual technologies since 1987. For the last 5 years, along with a wide selection of robotics contract engineering, Shadow has specialised in the development of dexterous manipulation for humanoid robotics. This has lead to the creation of the worlds most advanced robot hand, The Shadow Dexterous Hand, currently in version C6.
To have a look at the ROS software we distribute for our hardware and also for different control mean we're using, please refer to our shadow_robot stack, as well as our new etherCAT driver.
Installation
The recommended way for most of the users is to use the stable releases, as detailed in the Diamondback installation instruction. It's also possible to directly checkout our code as detailed below.
Stable Releases:
You can also install our stack in ROS unstable:
Or install the code directly from sources:
Stable stable release.
Trunk trunk version, relatively stable. Best if you want to add new functionalities to our stack.
Capability Overview
Robot Arm, Dexterous Hand and Tactile Sensors
You can run our robot either as a simulated robot - using Gazebo, or as a dummy simulation where the target you send is directly converted to a position - or as an interface to our real hardware. For more details, please go to the sr_hand wiki page.
Following the same principle, we implemented an interface to our tactile sensors. They can also be accessed as simulated sensors, or dummy sensors.
Miscellaneous drivers
We also developed some useful drivers:
an interface to the Cyberglove from Immersion. It publishes raw and calibrated data and there's an existing calibration procedure in our GUI.
an interface to the 3DConnexion 3D Mouse.
Other useful nodes
A modular GUI which can be used to control our different interfaces, and is easy to extend, thanks to a plugin architecture.
A remapper which remaps the data coming from the Cyberglove to control our Dexterous Hand.
Running
Using the Hand and Arm in simulation
Have a look at the sr_hand package to use our hardware in simulation, you should read our small Gazebo Tutorial to get started. 1
Using ROS with our Hardware
Have a look at the sr_hand package to use the interface with our hardware. Please note that you should have received a computer already configured to run ROS and our interface with your hardware.
Tutorials
Please see the official Shadow Robot tutorials.
Support
Please contact us: ugo@shadowrobot.com or contact@shadowrobot.com.