RTDEClient

The Real Time Data Exchange Client, RTDEClient, class serves as a standalone RTDE client. To use the RTDE-Client, you’ll have to initialize and start it separately:

rtde_interface::RTDEClient my_client(ROBOT_IP, notifier, OUTPUT_RECIPE, INPUT_RECIPE);
my_client.init();
my_client.start();
while (true)
{
  std::unique_ptr<rtde_interface::DataPackage> data_pkg = my_client.getDataPackage(READ_TIMEOUT);
  if (data_pkg)
  {
    std::cout << data_pkg->toString() << std::endl;
  }
}

Upon construction, two recipe files have to be given, one for the RTDE inputs, one for the RTDE outputs. Please refer to the RTDE guide on which elements are available.

Inside the RTDEclient data is received in a separate thread, parsed by the RTDEParser and added to a pipeline queue.

Right after calling my_client.start(), it should be made sure to read the buffer from the RTDEClient by calling getDataPackage() frequently. The Client’s queue can only contain a restricted number of items at a time, so a Pipeline producer overflowed! error will be raised if the buffer isn’t read frequently enough.

For writing data to the RTDE interface, use the RTDEWriter member of the RTDEClient. It can be retrieved by calling getWriter() method. The RTDEWriter provides convenience methods to write all data available at the RTDE interface. Make sure that the required keys are configured inside the input recipe, as otherwise the send-methods will return false if the data field is not setup in the recipe.

An example of a standalone RTDE-client can be found in the examples subfolder. To run it make sure to

  • have an instance of a robot controller / URSim running at the configured IP address (or adapt the address to your needs)

  • run it from the package’s main folder, as for simplicity reasons it doesn’t use any sophisticated method to locate the required files.

Note

The URDriver class creates a RTDEClient during initialization using the provided recipes and utilizing the robot model’s maximum frequency. If you would like to use a different frequency, please use the resetRTDEClient() method after the UrDriver object has been created.

RTDEWriter

The RTDEWriter class provides an interface to write data to the RTDE interface. Data fields that should be written have to be defined inside the INPUT_RECIPE as noted above.

The class offers specific methods for every RTDE input possible to write.

Data is sent asynchronously to the RTDE interface.