Use MoveIt Pro With Hardware

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

This guide will cover how to configure MoveIt Pro 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 Pro for a Specific Robot <Configuring MoveIt Pro 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 Pro.

Set Runtime Variables for Hardware

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

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

When MoveIt Pro is installed, this file is initialized containing default values which configure MoveIt Pro 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 Pro to attempt to connect to an actual robot.

Run MoveIt Pro

After updating the environment variables, run MoveIt Pro:

cd $HOME/moveit_pro
./moveit_pro run