compatibility with ros_control (ROS1)

[hamyyy]

How difficult would it be to change the pr2_description package to use standard ros_control joints, transmissions etc. Most of the current ros packages were developed after testing on the pr2. so it would seem like bringing the pr2 up to the current ROS1 control standard should be rather straightforward. might only need to mess around with urdf/xacro files. This may open the possibility of using the PR2 with ROS2 also.

[v4hn]

It's clearly possible with some effort. I started looking into it some years ago, but I never finished anything worth saving.
The urdf only needs tiny changes for the transmissions (and you don't even need them if you patch one parser code somewhere, but the hardware interface and device drivers need to be ported as well.
Eventually that would let us use the standard ros_control (e.g. JointTrajectoryController) interfaces which improved many use-cases slightly.
If you have access to a robot and do the work to port it I'm happy to test on our PR2 as well. :)