Quick Start Install

Welcome to the world's most powerful platform for robot arm manipulation!

note

A license key is required to run MoveIt Pro; if you do not already have one please contact us for more information. By downloading the MoveIt Pro software you are agreeing to the Terms and Conditions.

Supported Operating Systems

MoveIt Pro runs on Ubuntu natively, which we recommend for the best experience using MoveIt Pro. We also support running on macOS through the Parallels hypervisor hardware virtualization, with specific considerations documented throughout this guide. Using WSL on MS Windows is not recommended or supported at this time. For the full system requirements see the MoveIt Pro Tech Specs.

Choose your computer's operating system:

Ubuntu

Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 is our recommended version of Ubuntu, though we also support Ubuntu 22.04.

NOTE: Our installation process will not install ROS or MoveIt on your host machine, and will not affect any existing ROS workspaces or configurations you may have.

macOS

Mac support requires Parallels (a paid product) for hardware virtualization.

• Follow the instructions to install Parallels on your Mac.
• Follow the instructions to install Ubuntu 22.04 Linux in a Parallels VM
• Once the installation is finished, adjust the VM's allocated Hardware settings:
  • Shut down the VM via the "Actions" menu and select "Shut Down"
  • From the "Parallels Desktop" application select the "Windows" menu and select "Control Center"
  • Open the Settings menu from the gear icon of your Ubuntu virtual machine.
  • Select the "Hardware" tab in the configuration window.
  • Select "CPU and Memory" and select at least 8 processors and 12 GB of RAM for optimal performance. The simulator needs a lot of computer resources, though less may still work also.
  • Optional: Configure Port Forwarding by selecting the "Network" tab
    • Click "Advanced.."
    • Click "Open Network Preferences..."
    • In the "Port forwarding rules:" table click the "+" button. Add 4 total rules:
      • Source Port: 80
      • Forward to: Choose your virtual machine
      • Destination Port: 80
    • Repeat adding rules for ports 3200, 3202, 3201
    • Close out all the window
• Restart the VM to continue installing MoveIt Pro.

NOTE: When using Parallels, your Docker daemon may occasionally need restarts to fix DNS issues during MoveIt Pro install. There is a known issue where your network configuration can become degraded in long-running virtual machines. You can address this each time by restarting Parallels, or by running this command: sudo systemctl restart docker. You will need to do this whenever performing upgrades, also.

Dependencies Setup

Docker Setup

MoveIt Pro uses a Docker-based install to make ROS dependency management and compatibility easier. Note: we do not currently support Docker Desktop due to its separate network stack.

Check if you already have Docker by running in a terminal:

docker run hello-world

If Docker is already installed, click here.

Make sure that your Docker version is from Docker's Apt repositories - the versions from Canonical are very old. You can check this by running

apt-cache policy docker-compose-plugin

and making sure that the installed version (marked with ***) is from https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu, not a domain under ubuntu.com.

If Docker is not installed, click here.

We recommend two ways to install Docker:

Easiest

Simply copy paste the below commands into your terminal:

sudo apt-get install curl
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo groupadd docker
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER
sg docker "newgrp $(id -gn)"

More Advanced Follow Docker's official documentation:

1. Docker's convenience script
2. Docker's post-installation steps to ensure you can run without sudo privileges.

Finally

To ensure permissions settings take affect for all terminal sessions, log out and back in to your computer.

Finally, verify that you can run Docker commands without sudo.

docker run hello-world

NVIDIA Setup (Only if you have NVIDIA GPUs)

While MoveIt Pro works with any type of GPU, the NVIDIA Container Toolkit​ is required for computers that have NVIDIA-based GPUs. If you do not have an NVIDIA GPU the rest of the MoveIt Pro deterministic algorithms and capabilities will still work, but some ML-based examples may perform worse or not at all.

Install the nvidia-container-toolkit.

For more information, or to verify that the toolkit is installed properly, see our detailed how-to guide Configuring NVIDIA GPUs

Install and Run MoveIt Pro

note

Upgrading: If you have previously installed the software, see instead Upgrading MoveIt Pro.

To install, run in a terminal:

sudo apt install curl
curl -Lo /tmp/moveit-pro-8.2.0-any.deb https://github.com/PickNikRobotics/moveit_pro_deb/raw/main/picknik/moveit-pro-8.2.0-any.deb
sudo apt install /tmp/moveit-pro-8.2.0-any.deb
moveit_pro run

When you run MoveIt Pro for the first time, it will have several setup prompts. As part of the quick start, we suggest you follow all the recommended settings (Y).

MoveIt Pro will download and build the necessary Docker images and user workspace. This requires a ~2 GB download the first time, and will take a few minutes to complete depending on your internet speed. Go get a coffee or tea ☕.

If you have any issues, see our Troubleshooting Section below.

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Advanced Users

If you have an existing, custom MoveIt Pro user workspace and robot config, you can set that instead of our example workspace. See the documentation on moveit_pro configure to learn more about this and other command line interface (CLI) options. You can also explore moveit_pro --help for more info.

Choosing a robot configuration package

The last configuration step in the terminal should have you choose the robot configuration package. We recommend you choose lab_sim as that package contains our most comprehensive set of example applications, and will load an example UR5e robot on a linear rail.

MoveIt Pro Bringup

After all the configuration and download is complete, MoveIt Pro should start automatically in your browser. If it doesn't, you can manually start it by running moveit_pro run again.

The MoveIt Pro Runtime should load in the background, and the MoveIt Pro Developer Platform user interface should launch in your default browser at http://localhost/, though you can use any modern, up to date browser of your choice.

You should see the following:

Troubleshooting

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You can use moveit_pro run -v to see more verbose output, which can be helpful for debugging if for some reasons things don't work right away for you.

Other issues, questions, or feedback:

• Check out our extensive Troubleshooting Guide
• Contact PickNik support

Start An Example Application

To quickly see an example application (an "Objective") click the Run button on the Pick April Tag Labeled Object Objective under the Application - Advanced Examples section of the Objectives sidebar on the left. You should then see the robot executing a simple pick and place motion:

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Code when you need it, UI when you don’t.

You can also run the MoveIt Pro Runtime in "headless mode" for to be used with our Websocket APIs to enable you to programmatically integrate our runtime autonomy with your software application and company-specific graphical UIs. Our developer UI is optional!

moveit_pro run --headless

Additionally, you can visualize your robot through other tools like RViz or Foxglove:

moveit_pro rviz

Explore other example robot configs

MoveIt Pro ships with 6+ example “robot configs” that you can explore, downloaded from the source-available moveit_pro_example_ws Github repo. These example worlds serve as reference applications and examples you can use for creating your own robotics applications. Check out the launch commands below:

lab_sim

Single arm on linear rail in laboratory environment.

moveit_pro run -c lab_sim

hangar_sim

Mobile manipulator moving cargo boxes in an airplane hangar.

moveit_pro run -c hangar_sim

grinding_sim

Engine block machining example with PushCorp end effector on UR10e.

moveit_pro run -c grinding_sim

space_satellite_sim

Client and servicer space vehicles performing grappling operation.

moveit_pro run -c space_satellite_sim

factory_sim

Tool changing and reachability example for fixed-base industrial arm.

moveit_pro run -c factory_sim

mock_sim

Machine tending demonstration, without high fidelity simulator.

moveit_pro run -c mock_sim

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You can see all available configuration packages with the command moveit_pro run --list.

tip

If you don't want MoveIt Pro to keep launching new tabs in your web browser, you can ask it to skip that step using moveit_pro run --no-browser. Note: you will have to manually refresh your browser tab every time you do a full restart of MoveIt Pro.

Click on the Next button below to continue through the getting started tutorials, though we will go through these live with you during our monthly training courses so you may want to hold off.