OnRobot_RG2FT_ROS2_Driver

This repository is based on the OnRobot-RG2FT-ROS driver: https://github.com/ian-chuang/OnRobot-RG2FT-ROS for ROS2 Humble. It was developed with the assistance of artificial intelligence (OpenAI GPT-5) for debugging and migration.

Main Features:

• Communication with the OnRobot RG2FT gripper via Modbus TCP

• Continuous publishing of state data: forces, torques, and gripper width

• Command reception through ROS 2 topics

• Support for services (restart, calibration, proximity offsets)

• Other packages from the original repository (MoveIt, Description, Action Server) were excluded for simplicity for now.

Installation

1. Start by creating your workspace and cloning the repository:

cd ~/workspace/src

git clone https://github.com/A01637071/onrobot_rg2ft_ros2_driver.git

2. Install pymodbus 2.1.0:

pip3 install pymodbus==2.1.0

3. Compile your workspace

cd ~/workspace/

colcon build

source install/setup.bash

Running the driver

This command connects to the gripper and prints a message once the connection is established. It also receives the other commands to physically manipulate it.

ros2 run onrobot_rg2ft_control OnRobotRG2FTDriver.py

Make sure your gripper's IP is 192.168.1.1. If it is different, change it on the OnRobotRG2FT.py and the OnRobotRG2FTDriver.py file.

Now that your gripper is connected, on another terminal you can close the gripper with this command:

ros2 topic pub /gripper/command onrobot_rg2ft_msgs/msg/RG2FTCommand \
  "{target_force: 40, target_width: 0, control: 1}"

And you can open it back with:

ros2 topic pub /gripper/command onrobot_rg2ft_msgs/msg/RG2FTCommand \
  "{target_force: 40, target_width: 1000, control: 1}"

The parameter target_force should not be lesser than 10 for the gripper to move. The maximium value available is ... Meanwhile target_widthgoes from 0 to 1000.