Universal Robot ROS 2 Driver

A ROS Driver for Universal Robots (not the official driver) for seamless integration and control of the UR robotic arms within ROS 2 applications.

Features

• Real-time control of the UR robots via ROS2 (joint trajectories, I/O control).
• Support for all UR models (UR3, UR5, UR5e, UR10, UR16).
• Simulation-ready (Gazebo & Ignition) - In Progress (ETA: Q4 2025)
• URCap integration for deployment on robot controllers.

Installation

Prerequisites

• ROS 2 (Humble, Foxy, Galactic)
• Universal Robot (e-series or CB3, with Polyscope >= 5.0)
• Colcon build system

Build

mkdir -p ~/ur_ros2_ws/src
cd ~/ur_ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/Davisonyeas/UR_ROS2_Driver.git
cd ..
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src -r -y
colcon build --symlink-install

Configure the Robot

• Enable external control on the UR teach pendant
• Set the robot's IP
• NOTE: Robot should be on External Control mode to use this ROS2 Driver.

Usage

Launching the Driver

To launch the driver with a specific UR robot model:

source ~/ur_ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch ur_ros2_driver ur_driver.launch.py robot_ip:=<robot-ip> robot_model:=<robot_model>

Controlling the Robot

Send trajectory commands using ROS 2 action interfaces. You can also integrate with MoveIt 2 for motion planning.