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The colman_bringup package is the top-level entry point for starting the Colman robotic arm system. It provides a set of composable launch files that you can invoke individually or together through colman.launch.py, which orchestrates bringup, simulation, MoveIt 2, depth processing, YOLO detection, and AprilTag detection as opt-in subsystems.

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Launch files

The foundational bringup file. It starts robot_state_publisher (loading the correct URDF via xacro with gripper_type and use_camera mappings), conditionally starts ros2_control_node / controller_manager when start_external_rm is true, and spawns three controllers:
  • joint_state_broadcaster — publishes /joint_states
  • joint_trajectory_controller — arm trajectory execution
  • gripper_controller or robotiq_gripper_controller — selected by gripper_type
When use_sim_time is true, the URDF is loaded from colman_gazebo instead of colman_description so the Gazebo-compatible XACRO is used.
ros2 launch colman_bringup bringup.launch.py \
  gripper_type:=custom \
  use_camera:=true \
  use_sim_time:=false \
  start_external_rm:=false
The all-in-one launcher that composes every subsystem. It includes bringup.launch.py unconditionally and then conditionally includes the following launch files based on boolean arguments:
ArgumentDefaultIncluded launch file
simtruesim.launch.py
moveittruemoveit.launch.py
depthfalsedepth.launch.py
yolofalseyolo.launch.py
apriltagfalseapriltag.launch.py
The use_sim_time parameter forwarded to bringup.launch.py and moveit.launch.py is driven by the sim argument, so toggling simulation automatically updates the clock source.
# Simulation with MoveIt 2 and AprilTag detection
ros2 launch colman_bringup colman.launch.py \
  sim:=true moveit:=true apriltag:=true gripper_type:=custom

# Real robot, no sim, with YOLO
ros2 launch colman_bringup colman.launch.py \
  sim:=false moveit:=true yolo:=true gripper_type:=vacuum
A standalone robot_state_publisher launch file intended for use with the real UR3e driver. It passes through all ur_robot_driver connection parameters to xacro, including robot_ip, ur_type, tf_prefix, headless_mode, and the UR script/recipe file paths resolved from ur_client_library and ur_robot_driver.
ros2 launch colman_bringup rsp.launch.py \
  robot_ip:=192.168.1.102 \
  ur_type:=ur3e \
  gripper_type:=vacuum \
  use_camera:=false
Launches Gazebo Harmonic with a configurable world file (defaults to table_world.sdf from colman_gazebo), spawns the robot from the /robot_description topic at a configurable Z height (spawn_z, default 0.76619 m for the table world), and starts the ros_gz_bridge clock bridge using bridge_config.yaml from colman_gazebo.
ros2 launch colman_bringup sim.launch.py \
  world:=/path/to/custom.sdf \
  spawn_z:=0.76619
Dispatches to either colman_moveit_custom.launch.py or colman_moveit_robotiq.launch.py inside colman_moveit_config based on the gripper_type argument. Both variants start a move_group node and optionally an RViz2 node with the pre-configured moveit.rviz file.
ros2 launch colman_bringup moveit.launch.py \
  gripper_type:=robotiq \
  use_camera:=true \
  use_sim_time:=false
Starts an apriltag_ros apriltag_node with its parameters loaded from colman_perception/config/apriltag.yaml (overridable via params_file). The node remaps its inputs to the OAK-D Pro topics:
  • image_rect → /oakd_pro/rgb/image
  • camera_info → /oakd_pro/rgb/camera_info
ros2 launch colman_bringup apriltag.launch.py
# or with a custom config:
ros2 launch colman_bringup apriltag.launch.py \
  params_file:=/path/to/apriltag.yaml
Starts the detection executable from colman_perception, which runs YOLO11 instance segmentation on incoming camera frames and publishes annotated images to /yolo/annotated.
ros2 launch colman_bringup yolo.launch.py
Builds a stereo depth pipeline on top of the OAK-D Pro left/right image streams. It starts:
  1. camera_info_republisher — injects the stereo baseline (baseline_m, default 0.075 m) into the projection matrix P[3] and corrects frame IDs before passing camera info to downstream nodes
  2. left_rectify / right_rectify — image_proc/rectify_node nodes on each stereo channel
  3. disparity — stereo_image_proc/disparity_node (SGM, range 128, approximate sync)
  4. point_cloud — stereo_image_proc/point_cloud_node publishing to /oakd_pro/depth/points2
ros2 launch colman_bringup depth.launch.py \
  baseline_m:=0.075 \
  enable_pointcloud:=true

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Launch arguments reference

The most commonly used arguments across the launch files are summarised below.
ArgumentTypeDefaultDescription
gripper_typestringcustomGripper model. Valid values: custom, robotiq, vacuum.
use_camerabooltrueAttach the OAK-D Pro camera link to the URDF and SRDF.
use_sim_timeboolfalseUse /clock from Gazebo instead of wall time.
start_external_rmboolfalseStart an external ros2_control_node. Set false when using Gazebo or the UR driver’s built-in controller manager.
simbooltrue(colman.launch.py only) Include Gazebo simulation.
moveitbooltrue(colman.launch.py only) Include MoveIt 2 move_group.
depthboolfalse(colman.launch.py only) Include stereo depth pipeline.
yoloboolfalse(colman.launch.py only) Include YOLO detection node.
apriltagboolfalse(colman.launch.py only) Include AprilTag detector.
When using colman.launch.py with sim:=true, the use_sim_time flag is automatically propagated to both bringup.launch.py and moveit.launch.py, so you do not need to set it separately.

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Dependencies

colman_bringup depends on the following packages at runtime:
  • xacro, robot_state_publisher — robot description processing
  • controller_manager — ros2_control spawning
  • ros_gz_sim, ros_gz_bridge — Gazebo integration
  • colman_description, colman_gazebo — robot models and worlds
  • colman_perception — camera and detection nodes
  • colman_moveit_config — MoveIt 2 configuration
  • rviz2 — visualisation

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