Set up workstation for Franka Panda

Description

The Workstation hosts the perls2 environment and sends robot commands to the NUC via the redis-server. The redis-server is connected via TCP.

Setting up SSH Key to Control PC

(Instructions copied from HARPLAB gastronomy)

1. Generate an ssh key by executing the following commands or reading the instructions here:

   ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "workstation name"
   [Press enter]
   [Press enter]
   [Press enter]
   eval "$(ssh-agent -s)"
   ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa
   

2. Upload your public ssh key to the control pc.

   1. In a new terminal, ssh to the control PC.

      ssh [control-pc-username]@[control-pc-ip]
      Input password to control-pc.
      

   2. Use your favorite text editor to open the authorized_keys file.

      vim ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
      

   3. In a separate terminal on your Workstation PC, use your favorite text editor to open your id_rsa.pub file.

      vim ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
      

   4. Copy the contents from your id_rsa.pub file to a new line on the authorized_keys file on the Control PC. Then save.

   5. Open a new terminal and try sshing to the control PC and it should no longer require a password.

Installation and setup

1. Install redis

   sudo apt-get install redis-server
   

2. Clone perls2 and checkout the panda_dev branch

   git clone https://github.com/StanfordVL/perls2.git
   cd ~/perls2
   git checkout panda_dev
   

3. Install perls2

4. Copy the redis_passfile.txt from the perls2_local_control_pc directory on your Control PC to your workstation (preferably outside the perls2 directory.)

5. If necessary, modify the perls2/cfg/redis.yaml with the ip address of the control pc on the local network:

# Redis-server hosted by NUC for Robot Control
redis:
  host: [Local ip address of the NUC] 

For example:

# Redis-server hosted by NUC for Robot Control
redis:
  host: "172.16.0.1"
  port: 6379
  password: null

Test out a demo

1. Follow the steps here for using the Franka Panda, and run the Gravity Compensation demo.

   python perls2/demos/run_gc_demo.py --world=Real