Whole Body Control -The latest robot ros controller

Whole Body Control

Enable easy and safe commanding of the robot’s end effectors by simply specifying where you want the robot to be in real-world coordinates.

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Updates | Functionalities | WBC on TIAGo | Demonstrations | Robots

The humanoid robot TALOS with the whole body control unit

Discover & define

Whole Body Control (WBC) is a ROS controller developed by PAL Robotics to define tasks and constraints within priorities.

WBC adds extra functionalities like online teleoperation and dynamic goals for HRI and manipulation that can be combined with Moveit!

The controller is called Whole Body Control because it also controls all joints in PAL Robotics’ bipeds such as REEM-C, TALOS, and Kangaroo.

What can it do?

The WBC controls all the robot’s joints (except for the robot base that the navigation stacks controls) so that you will be able to:

Control all the joints directly with joint state commands or simply the ones you need to control.
Control the joints based on concrete physical input like the head gaze control where the head moves to centre the camera’s image, or the position and orientation of end-effectors that detects an object and moves to grasp it.
Communicate many other commands for TIAGo’s WBC through the ROS framework.

What is it?

Whole Body Control is a feedback optimisation solver written in the ros_control framework.

Feedback on commands: WBC uses the current state as input to evaluate commands before performing them like tracking the current position before moving further or not.
Optimisation of solution: The controller finds an optimal solution obtained from an easier mathematical problem that has more conditions than variables.
Assign multiple tasks simultaneously: Assign multiple tasks, each with its own conditions for the robot to fulfil them.
Follow a prescribed hierarchy: Assign priority to every task to set the order of execution according to the hierarchy of commands.

What is it?

Whole Body Control is a feedback optimisation solver written in the ros_control framework.

Feedback : WBC uses the current state as input to evaluate commands before performing them like tracking the current position before moving further or not
Optimisation : The controller finds an optimal solution obtained from an easier mathematical problem that has more conditions than variables.
Multiple tasks simultaneously : Assign multiple tasks, each with its own conditions for the robot to fulfil them.
Following a prescribed hierarchy : Assign priority to every task to set the order of execution according to the hierarchy of commands.

How to extend these capabilities

You can add external devices to the WBC controller to improve the robot’s capabilities and control in two ways:

Whole Body Control in action

Whole Body Control on TIAGo

The default list of tasks for TIAGo robot or stack is composed by 3 actions:

Demonstrations

Arm teleoperation with a joystick and adding force information to the controller stack
Teleoperation of the robot’s upper body by tracking a human hand

Aruco demo on how to make the end-effector follow dynamically a marker
Rviz interactive markers to understand and debug tasks

Robots with the Whole Body Control

REEM-C

Bring your research one step ahead with REEM-C. Use the robot to implement and test your algorithms, or to get started in the field of biped robotics.

KANGAROO

The dynamic bipedal platform to research control methods for legged locomotion with a wide range of motion and motor control technology.

TIAGo

The TIAGo robot is ready to deliver social interaction and customized services in a wide variety of sectors. Find a new way to deliver services!

TALOS

The 1.75 m tall humanoid TALOS has sensored torque control at joint level and integrates the latest cutting-edge humanoid technology.

TIAGo

TALOS

REEM-C

Bring your research one step ahead with REEM-C. Use the robot to implement and test your algorithms, or to get started in the field of biped robotics.

KANGAROO

The highly dynamic bipedal platform to research advanced control methods for legged locomotion with a wide range of motion and motor control technology.

TIAGo