Attaching to the rack

Concept

Since our ebot is docked properly it should be close (<0.3 m) to the rack

In the actual hardware, we are going to use Eletromagnet mounted on the ebot to attach the rack.

Similarly, here we are using a Gazebo Plugin to attach the rack with the ebot in simulation.

Remember to change this in Stage 2 (Hardware implementation)

Steps

1. To attach the link, The ebot should be very close (<0.3m) from the rack it won't attach

   ros2 service call /ATTACH_LINK linkattacher_msgs/srv/AttachLink "{model1_name: 'ebot', link1_name: 'ebot_base_link', model2_name: 'rack1', link2_name: 'link'}"
   

   here:

   "{
       model1_name: 'ebot',               >>Don't change this
       link1_name: 'ebot_base_link',      >>Don't change this
       model2_name: 'rack1',              >> Just change this with the rack model name
       link2_name: 'link'                 >>Don't change this
       
       }"
   

2. To detach the link

   ros2 service call /DETACH_LINK linkattacher_msgs/srv/DetachLink "{model1_name: 'ebot', link1_name: 'ebot_base_link', model2_name: 'rack1', link2_name: 'link'}"
   

   here:

   "{
       model1_name: 'ebot',               >>Don't change this
       link1_name: 'ebot_base_link',      >>Don't change this
       model2_name: 'rack1',              >> Just change this with the rack model name
       link2_name: 'link'                 >>Don't change this
       
       }"
   

You can create python client using (sample snippet, similarly do for DetachLink):

from linkattacher_msgs.srv import AttachLink

link_attach_cli = self.create_client(AttachLink, '/ATTACH_LINK')

 while not self.link_attach_cli.wait_for_service(timeout_sec=1.0):
      self.get_logger().info('Link attacher service not available, waiting again...')

req = AttachLink.Request()
req.model1_name =  'ebot'     
req.link1_name  = 'ebot_base_link'       
req.model2_name =  <Specify the rack name>       
req.link2_name  = 'link'  

link_attach_cli.call_async(req)

Here is the example video of attaching to a rack,