ur_rtde: An Interface for Controlling Universal Robots (UR) using the Real-Time Data Exchange (RTDE)

Abstract

In this paper we introduce an open source cross-platform C++ interface for controlling Universal Robot (UR) manipulators. This interface is capable of controlling all UR robots that facilitates a RTDE (Real-time Data Exchange), which is the communication protocol used by this interface. Previous interfaces did not leverage the RTDE and it was one of the motivating factors for writing this interface. ur_rtde can be used both from C++ and Python with bindings. A Python package has been released, to make it easy to install and use on Windows, Linux and MacOS. We show that the proposed interface outperforms other interfaces in terms of real-time characteristics.