Can I use effort_controllers/joint_position_controller for trajectory rather than effort_controllers/joint_trajectory_controller?

Hello,

I made the ros_control course and I have learnt a lot, so now I can use it for my own stuff. In the course the custom controller is a effort_controllers/joint_position_controller so a position is published for the RRbot.

I did some research about other controller types in ros and found a effort_controllers/joint_trajectory_controller where its supposed to execute a trajectories. Starting from this course, I would like to make another step executing a simple trajectory for this rrbot. My question is:

As join_trajectory_controller is supposed to command a group of controllers (ros documentation says that), If I want to command just joint1, should I still use the effort_controllers/joint_position_controller or change it to the effort_controllers/joint_trajectory_controller?

Maybe this is an off-course topic but I did a research and havent found information about this… Thanks in advance if somebody can help me!

Hello @mikellasa ,

Your conclusions are correct. It doesn’t make much sense to use a joint trajectory controller to command a single joint so, in this case, it makes more sense to simply use a joint_position_controller.