Integrated Control of PiPER Mate and Piper Robotic Arms

This project implements integrated control between the PiPER Mate robotic arm and the Piper robotic arm, enabling real-time teleoperation through USB and CAN bus.

Project Overview

This project allows users to use the PiPER Mate robotic arm as the leader device to control the Piper robotic arm in real time. The system reads the joint states of the PiPER Mate robotic arm and converts them into control commands for the Piper robotic arm, enabling precise teleoperation.

Features

Real-time teleoperation: supports a high control frequency.
Joint mapping: automatically converts PiPER Mate joint angles to Piper joint positions.
Safety protection: includes joint angle limits and torque control.
Gripper control: optional coordinated gripper control.

System Requirements

Hardware Requirements

PiPER Mate robotic arm (connected through USB)
Piper robotic arm (connected through CAN bus)
CAN-to-USB adapter
Linux system (Ubuntu 22.04+ recommended)

Software Dependencies

# 安装CAN工具
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ethtool can-utils

# Python依赖
sudo pip install serial fashionstar-uart-sdk piper-sdk python-can scipy

Quick Start

1. Configure the CAN Device

Single-CAN Device Configuration

# 1. 查找所有CAN端口
bash find_all_can_port.sh
# 2. 激活can0接口（波特率1000000）
bash can_activate.sh can0 1000000

2. Run the Main Program

python3 ./Python_SDK/piper_pipermate.py

3. Parameter Configuration

Modify the following parameters in the piper_pipermate.py file's main() function:

# PiPER Mate USB端口
PIPERMATE_PORT = "/dev/ttyUSB0"

# Piper CAN端口
PIPER_CAN_NAME = "can0"

# 是否包含夹爪
GRIPPER_EXIST = True

# 控制频率（Hz）
UPDATE_RATE = 100.0

Core Functions

Joint Angle Conversion

The system supports angle conversion for 6 joints:

Joint	Angle Limit	Radian Limit	Direction
Joint1	-150° ~ 150°	-2.6179 ~ 2.6179	Reversed
Joint2	0° ~ 180°	0 ~ 3.14	Forward
Joint3	-170° ~ 0°	-2.967 ~ 0	Forward
Joint4	-100° ~ 100°	-1.745 ~ 1.745	Reversed
Joint5	-70° ~ 70°	-1.22 ~ 1.22	Forward
Joint6	-120° ~ 120°	-2.09439 ~ 2.09439	Reversed

Gripper Control

The gripper angle is converted to metric distance:

Angle range: 0° ~ 45°
Corresponding distance: 0 m ~ 0.08 m

Control Modes

Joint control mode: 0x01
Speed control mode: 0x01
Speed control ratio: 100

Script Descriptions

can_activate.sh

Single-CAN device activation script. Supports:

Automatic CAN interface detection
Bitrate configuration
Interface renaming
USB hardware address matching

can_config.sh

General CAN configuration script. Supports:

Single-CAN and multi-CAN device configuration
Flexible USB port mapping
Custom bitrate settings

can_muti_activate.sh

Multi-CAN device activation script. Supports:

Parallel configuration of multiple devices
Duplicate name detection
Interactive confirmation

find_all_can_port.sh

CAN port detection script. Used to:

List all CAN interfaces
Display USB port information
Check system compatibility

Troubleshooting

Common Issues

CAN interface not found
Check whether the CAN device is connected.
Run find_all_can_port.sh to detect the interface.
Confirm that the USB port mapping is correct.
Insufficient permissions
Run the script after using sudo chmod 777 /dev/ttyUSB*.
PiPER Mate connection failed
Check the USB port number.
Confirm that the FashionStar SDK is installed correctly.
Check device permissions.

Configuration Information

The program displays the following during operation:

Real-time joint state monitoring
Control frequency statistics
Detailed error output

Safety Notes

Pre-operation check: Make sure there are no obstacles around the robotic arms.
Emergency stop: Press Ctrl+C to stop the program immediately.
Torque control: PiPER Mate torque is disabled by default.
Joint limits: The system automatically limits joint angles to a safe range.

License

This project is open-sourced under the MIT license.

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome to improve the project.

Contact

Contact the project maintainer if you have any questions.