Use MoveIt Studio With Hardware

By default, MoveIt Studio is configured to use a simulation environment.

This guide will cover how to configure MoveIt Studio to be used with robot hardware.

Create a Robot Configuration Package

This is the most important step, since the configuration package contains the settings the robot driver uses to connect to the robot, such as the IP address of the robot controller.

Refer to Configuring MoveIt Studio for a Specific Robot <Configuring MoveIt Studio for a Specific Robot> for detailed instructions about creating a configuration package for a robot.

Connect to Your Robot

For UR e-Series robots, follow the instructions in UR5e Hardware Setup Guide <UR5e Hardware Setup Guide> to connect the robot controller to the computer where you have installed MoveIt Studio.

Set Runtime Variables for Hardware

MoveIt Studio contains a .env file that sets a variety of environment variables.

The default location of this file is at ~/moveit_studio/.env.

When MoveIt Studio is installed, this file is initialized containing default values which configure MoveIt Studio to launch a simulated robot.

To allow controlling actual robot hardware, you will need to modify the values of some of these variables:

• STUDIO_CONFIG_PACKAGE: Change this to the name of a config package that is specialized for your robot.
• MOCK_HARDWARE: Set this to false to tell MoveIt Studio to attempt to connect to an actual robot.

Run MoveIt Studio

After updating the environment variables, run MoveIt Studio:

cd $HOME/moveit_studio
./moveit_studio run