How can I make sawyer avoid hitting the table?

[USC_robotics]

Hi guys,

I am trying to do some rl experiments on sawyer. The self-collision avoidance feature works really well. However as I setup the sawyer on a fixed table, I also need to make sure the robot will not hit the table either. But I have no idea how to do this.

Any help is appreciated!

[Ian McMahon]

Hi there,

The built-in collision avoidance software can only prevent the robot from coming into self collision (except added end effectors), and is not currently modifiable. You can programmatically set up your own boundaries by using a 3rd party library like the Flexible Collision Library to check when the arm has collided with an arbitrary object (sphere, box, polygon, etc.) and then apply repelling joint torques to move the arm out of the collision field:

https://github.com/flexible-collision-library/fcl

Hope this helps!
~ Ian