Robotics System Toolbox™ Support Package for

Manipulators Release Notes

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Robotics System Toolbox™ Support Package for Manipulators Release Notes
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 Contents

R2021b

Deploy manipulator control logic as standalone ROS node created using

Simulink on Jetson board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1-2

R2021a

Connect to KINOVA Gen3 Robot using ROS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-2

R2020b

Robotics System Toolbox Support Package for Manipulators: Control

Robotic Manipulators Using MATLAB and Simulink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2

iii
 1

R2021b

Version: 21.2.0

New Features
R2021b

Deploy manipulator control logic as standalone ROS node created

using Simulink on Jetson board
The Robotics System Toolbox Support Package for Manipulators now supports deploying manipulator
control logic as a standalone ROS node created using Simulink® on an NVIDIA® Jetson® computing
board. Once deployed, the ROS node utilizes ros_kortex API to control KINOVA® Gen3 robots. This
feature eliminates the need for a continuous communication link between the Gen3 robot and the
host computer with MATLAB® installed on it. This feature also allows you to use the computational
capability of Jetson boards to perform various automated tasks for the manipulator involving AI,
computer vision, and path planning.

You can further use MATLAB to start, stop, and read the running status of the standalone ROS node
deployed on the Jetson board. With the ros_kortex API, you can read data from the KINOVA Gen3
robot and perform joint-angle control or trajectory control of the robot. For more details, refer to the
topics under “Run on Target Hardware”. The examples specific to this workflow are:

• “Simulate a Detect and Pick Algorithm Using OpenCV Interface and Rigid Body Tree Robot
Model”
• “Design and Validate Object Detection and Motion Planning Algorithms Using Gazebo, OpenCV,
and MATLAB”
• “Read Current Joint Angle of KINOVA Gen3 and Publish to ROS Network”
• “Detect and Pick Object Using KINOVA Gen3 Robot Arm with Joint Angle Control and Trajectory
Control”

1-2
 2

R2021a

Version: 21.1.0

New Features
R2021a

Connect to KINOVA Gen3 Robot using ROS

The Robotics System Toolbox Support Package for Manipulators now provides an additional option to
connect and control the KINOVA Gen3 robot using ROS, ROS Toolbox, ros_kortex ROS packages,
MATLAB, and Simulink. This is in addition to the existing support to connect using matlab_kortex API,
MATLAB, and Simulink.

The Hardware Setup screens in the support package guide you through the installation and
configuration steps based on whether ROS and MATLAB are installed on the same host computer or
on different host computers.

2-2
 3

R2020b

Version: 20.2.0

New Features
R2020b

Robotics System Toolbox Support Package for Manipulators: Control

Robotic Manipulators Using MATLAB and Simulink
The Robotics System Toolbox Support Package for Manipulators is available from release R2020b
onwards. You can use the support package to manipulate a Kinova® Gen3 robot using MATLAB and
Simulink.

The support package includes a set of Hardware Setup screens that lets you establish connection
with the Gen3 robot, and also download the Kinova® KORTEX™ API and the Image Acquisition
Toolbox™ adaptor for Kinova Gen3 robot. After the initial setup, you can perform these actions using
the support package:

• Simulate Gen3 robot using rigid body tree robot models from Robotics System Toolbox
• Connect with the robot hardware to acquire various sensor data and validate your algorithms
• Calculate joint configurations for desired cartesian pose
• Generate trajectories using MATLAB and Simulink and command the robot to follow pre-computed
trajectories
• Use the vision module's depth and color streams to develop computer vision algorithms

3-2