friday_ros2

Public ROS 2 packages for the Friday.

Packages

• friday_ros2: meta-package for the public Friday ROS 2 packages.
• friday_description: robot URDF, MJCF, meshes, and visualization launch files.
• friday_manipulation: one-shot joint-space and Cartesian-space manipulation examples.
• friday_msgs: public ROS 2 interfaces for Friday.
• friday_teleop: keyboard teleoperation launch files.

Public Interfaces

friday_msgs provides the public message and service contracts used by Friday.

• Robot and hardware state: BatteryState, BoardStateArray, BumperStateArray, EmergencyStop, JointLockState, LoadCellStateArray, MotorStateArray, RangeStateArray, and TactileStateArray.
• Static sensor metadata: TactileLayout.
• Robot control: ControlMode, Manipulation, JointReaching, LinkReaching, and ViewReaching.
• Services: GetMotorLimits, ResetBoardFaults, SetControlMode, SetMotorCurrentLimit, SetMotorVelocityLimit, and SetRangeSensorEnabled.

State arrays are keyed by the name or ID field documented in each entry type, except tactile state. TactileStateArray.points[i] corresponds to TactileLayout.sensors[i].

The current contract removes the legacy EncoderState, RobotStatus, TactileData, TactileMagnet, GetEncoderState, GetMotorLimit, GetMotorState, GetRobotStatus, and SetMotorLimit interfaces. Motor and external encoder state are provided by MotorStateArray. Motor limit operations use GetMotorLimits and the separate velocity/current setters. Tactile state and layout use TactileStateArray and TactileLayout. Safety state is split across EmergencyStop, BoardStateArray, and JointLockState.

Build

Clone the repository and build it as a ROS 2 workspace:

git clone https://github.com/Holiday-Robot/friday_ros2.git
cd friday_ros2
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -r -y
colcon build --base-paths . --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash

Launch Friday Description

Start robot_state_publisher and RViz:

ros2 launch friday_description friday_state_publisher.launch.py

Enable the joint state publisher GUI:

ros2 launch friday_description friday_state_publisher.launch.py use_joint_state_publisher_gui:=true

MuJoCo Model

friday_description/mjcf/FM26A.mjcf is a MuJoCo model of the same robot, generated from the source the URDF comes from. It loads directly:

python -m mujoco.viewer --mjcf friday_description/mjcf/FM26A.mjcf

It shares the package's meshes/ tree with the URDF rather than carrying its own copy, via <compiler meshdir="../meshes">. Keep the mjcf/ directory next to meshes/ when copying the model elsewhere, or point meshdir at wherever the meshes ended up.

The model carries the kinematic tree with a free-floating base, position actuators for the hand, arm, waist, and head joints, velocity actuators for the two drive wheels, and the named poses (ready, rest, grab, release) as keyframes. Collision geometry uses contype/conaffinity bitmasks encoding the self-collision allowlist; the legend is a comment in the <default> block. There is no ground plane — add one in your own scene.

Launch Keyboard Teleop

This example lets you drive Friday interactively by publishing keyboard input as velocity commands.

Before using keyboard teleop , turn on the robot torque and enable the controller:

ros2 service call holiday/joints/torque/set_enabled std_srvs/srv/SetBool '{data: true}'
ros2 service call holiday/control/set_enabled std_srvs/srv/SetBool '{data: true}'

Start teleop_twist_keyboard for holiday/cmd_vel:

ros2 launch friday_teleop teleop_twist_keyboard.launch.py

Keyboard controls

Run the launch command in an interactive terminal and keep that terminal focused while driving. Start at a low speed in a clear workspace. Press a movement key to publish a velocity command, press k or any unlisted key to stop, and press Ctrl-C to exit. A US keyboard layout is recommended.

The controller currently uses only forward/backward velocity and yaw. Strafing and vertical-motion keys have no effect.

This node takes keypresses from the keyboard and publishes them
as Twist/TwistStamped messages. It works best with a US keyboard layout.
---------------------------
Moving around:
   u    i    o
   j    k    l
   m    ,    .

For Holonomic mode (strafing), hold down the shift key:
---------------------------
   U    I    O
   J    K    L
   M    <    >

t : up (+z)
b : down (-z)

anything else : stop

q/z : increase/decrease max speeds by 10%
w/x : increase/decrease only linear speed by 10%
e/c : increase/decrease only angular speed by 10%

CTRL-C to quit

currently:  speed 0.03  turn 0.15

The currently values show the active linear and angular speed scales. Override their initial values with the speed and turn launch arguments:

ros2 launch friday_teleop teleop_twist_keyboard.launch.py speed:=0.10 turn:=0.20

The launch file attaches teleop_twist_keyboard stdin to /dev/tty, so run it from an interactive terminal. Non-interactive shells and sessions without a TTY cannot provide keyboard input.

Run Manipulation Examples

These examples publish one command to a running Friday controller and then exit. Verify that the robot workspace is clear before running them.

Before using running a manipulation example, turn on the robot torque and enable the controller:

ros2 service call holiday/joints/torque/set_enabled std_srvs/srv/SetBool '{data: true}'
ros2 service call holiday/control/set_enabled std_srvs/srv/SetBool '{data: true}'

joint_space

Move every controllable joint to zero:

ros2 run friday_manipulation joint_space init_pose

Move the waist and arms to the ready pose while commanding the hands and head to zero:

ros2 run friday_manipulation joint_space ready_pose

The command requires one positional argument:

Argument	Accepted values	Description
POSE	init_pose, ready_pose	Predefined joint-space pose to publish. There is no default.

Both presets command all 62 waist, arm, hand, and head joints. Joint positions are expressed in radians:

Joint group	Joint names	Count	init_pose	ready_pose
Waist	waist_1 through waist_5	5	All 0.0	[0.0, -0.48, 0.96, -0.48, 0.0]
Left arm	left_arm_1 through left_arm_7	7	All 0.0	[-0.92, 0.74, 0.0, -1.27, 0.44, 0.09, 0.0]
Right arm	right_arm_1 through right_arm_7	7	All 0.0	[-0.92, -0.74, 0.0, -1.27, -0.44, -0.09, 0.0]
Left hand	left_hand_<finger>_<joint>, with finger=1..5 and joint=1..4	20	All 0.0	All 0.0
Right hand	right_hand_<finger>_<joint>, with finger=1..5 and joint=1..4	20	All 0.0	All 0.0
Head	head_1 through head_3	3	All 0.0	All 0.0

The command does not accept individual joint names; the selected preset always publishes targets for every joint in the table.

Show the built-in argument help:

ros2 run friday_manipulation joint_space --help

cartesian_space

Move right_arm_7 0.10 m along the positive base_link X axis from its current pose while preserving its orientation:

ros2 run friday_manipulation cartesian_space

The command accepts the following arguments:

Argument	Default	Description
--reference-frame FRAME	base_link	Frame in which the current pose and offsets are expressed.
--target-frame FRAME	right_arm_7	End-effector frame to command.
--target-pos X Y Z	0.10 0.0 0.0	Translation offset in meters, added to the current target-frame position.
--target-quat X Y Z W	0.0 0.0 0.0 1.0	Rotation offset quaternion. It is normalized and composed as offset * current orientation. The default identity quaternion preserves the current orientation.

For example, move right_arm_7 0.15 m along the positive base_link Z axis and rotate it 90 degrees around that axis:

ros2 run friday_manipulation cartesian_space \
  --reference-frame base_link \
  --target-frame right_arm_7 \
  --target-pos 0.0 0.0 0.15 \
  --target-quat 0.0 0.0 0.7071 0.7071

Show the built-in argument help:

ros2 run friday_manipulation cartesian_space --help