Joint publishing with PolyscopeX

[GDqbrobotics]

Hello!
I'm using this driver with PolyscopeX. It looks like is working but something strange happens with the publishing of /joint_states. The node of the driver publish the state 2 times: one without prefix and one with the serial number of the robot as prefix. The position values are the same (changes the order of joint). I can move the robot with moveit but everything goes crazy due to the immense amount of warnings that I get for receiving this phantom states.
Info on joint_states:

`$ ros2 topic info /joint_states -v
Type: sensor_msgs/msg/JointState

Publisher count: 3

Node name: universal_robots_controller
Node namespace: /UR20245301303
Topic type: sensor_msgs/msg/JointState
Endpoint type: PUBLISHER
GID: 01.0f.3c.9c.33.04.6d.ac.01.00.00.00.00.00.23.03.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00
QoS profile:
  Reliability: RELIABLE
  History (Depth): UNKNOWN
  Durability: VOLATILE
  Lifespan: Infinite
  Deadline: Infinite
  Liveliness: AUTOMATIC
  Liveliness lease duration: Infinite

Node name: universal_robots_controller
Node namespace: /UR20245301303
Topic type: sensor_msgs/msg/JointState
Endpoint type: PUBLISHER
GID: 01.0f.3c.9c.33.04.6d.ac.01.00.00.00.00.00.38.03.00.00.00.00.00.00.00.00
QoS profile:
  Reliability: RELIABLE
  History (Depth): UNKNOWN
  Durability: VOLATILE
  Lifespan: Infinite
  Deadline: Infinite
  Liveliness: AUTOMATIC
...`

My terminal gets full of this:
pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506313956] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_shoulder_pan_joint' not found in model 'ur' pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506331736] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_shoulder_lift_joint' not found in model 'ur' pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506335070] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_elbow_joint' not found in model 'ur' pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506337633] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_wrist_1_joint' not found in model 'ur' pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506339986] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_wrist_2_joint' not found in model 'ur' pnrr_project-1 | [move_group-10] [ERROR] [1753793115.506342253] [moveit_robot_model.robot_model]: Joint 'UR20245301303_wrist_3_joint' not found in model 'ur'

Example of output of /joint_states:

'header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1753793261
    nanosec: 791059548
  frame_id: ''
name:
- shoulder_lift_joint
- elbow_joint
- wrist_1_joint
- wrist_2_joint
- wrist_3_joint
- shoulder_pan_joint
position:
- -1.4079523843577881
- -0.9717297554016113
- -2.0150586567320765
- 1.2846813201904297
- 1.1246893405914307
- -0.6358593145953577
velocity:
- 0.0
- -0.0
- 0.0
- -0.0
- 0.0
- 0.0
effort:
- 0.4980357885360718
- 0.9828275442123413
- 0.64938884973526
- -0.22610297799110413
- 0.04563545435667038
- -0.06341304630041122
---
header:
  stamp:
    sec: 1724632405
    nanosec: 865110000
  frame_id: ''
name:
- UR20245301303_shoulder_pan_joint
- UR20245301303_shoulder_lift_joint
- UR20245301303_elbow_joint
- UR20245301303_wrist_1_joint
- UR20245301303_wrist_2_joint
- UR20245301303_wrist_3_joint
position:
- -0.6358712355243128
- -1.4079784017852326
- -0.9717261791229248
- -2.0150658092894496
- 1.2846693992614746
- 1.1246739625930786
velocity:
- 0.0
- 0.0
- -0.0
- 0.0
- -0.0
- 0.0
effort:
- -0.3595256989739235
- 5.260861540362968
- 8.458296586611988
- 2.5568201529772754
- -0.9160268052259912
- 0.30063469744085747
'

Is it possible to publish just one of the 2 format?

[urfeex]

There are two instances publishing joint states: The ROS driver from this repo and the robot controller itself. Since PolyScope X there is a ROS component directly running on the robot's control box. We've written up a brief summary explaining the difference here.

What you are facing is that you probably enabled the "ROS 2" service in the PolyScope settings effectively opening the firewall for ROS communication directly with the robot's control box. That one publishes the joint states with the prefix. To mitigate this, I basically see the following options:

1. If you do not plan to use the built-in ROS communication, you can close it up again behind the firewall by disabling the "ROS 2" service in the PolyScope settings.
2. You can change the ROS_DOMAIN_ID of either the internal ROS integration or the one of your driver.
3. You can add the robot's serial number as a tf_prefix to the driver launch and deactivate the joint_state_broadcaster and probably also the tcp_pose_broadcaster. Note that I haven't tested this, but I would expect that this could work. You'll have to drag along the tf_prefix in everything you do, though.

Further note that the built-in ROS integration only works with ROS Humble at the moment. When using any other ROS 2 distribution it is strongly advised to go for option 1 or 2.

[GDqbrobotics]

I forgot to specify that I've never activated ROS2 service and a can see on the Services section that it is not active.
I'll try however to change the ROS_DOMAIN_ID to check if that's the problem (maybe a bug on the firewall rules update?).

Right now as a workaround I have created fake joints and link on my robot model.
I'll let you know!

[urfeex]

Which version of PolyScope X are you running?

[GDqbrobotics]

10.9.0

[urfeex]

The ROS interface should definitively not be exposed without explicitly configuring it. Do you have any other URCaps installed? Could there potentially be another robot on the network that does have the ROS 2 service enabled? I assume this is not the reason as you wrote that the joint values match.

[GDqbrobotics]

The only urcap installed is external control version 0.1.0. No other robots are powered, nor on the network and this is the only one with PolyscopeX.