Prerequisites

1. Install dependencies

sudo apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf 

2. Download and install Intel SoC FPGA Embedded Development Suite (Standard Edition).
3. Configure the environment using the embedded_command_shell.sh script

~/intelFPGA/17.0/embedded/embedded_command_shell.sh

Usage

1. Launch ROS node on FPGA

ssh [email protected]
~/.roboy_plexus

• look for Gandalf Data Limited in the following command output in order to find out FPGA's IP, substitute 192.168.0.255 by your network broadcast address

  sudo nmap -nsP 192.168.0.255/24
  

• if ssh doesn't work, connect the FPGA board to the PC via the USB port (use the one on the ethernet side of FPGA board) and connect to the serial monitor with

  screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200
  

• if the board was rebooted and the ethernet network interface doesn't work try

  ifup eth0
  

• make sure the PC and FPGA know where to look for ROS, i.e. ROS_MASTER_URI and ROS_IP are set (usually in the ~/.bashrc)

• if catkin_make fails, set up FPGA dev environment by calling

  ~/intelFPGA/17.1/embedded/embedded_command_shell.sh
  

2. Status of the motors is published under the rostopic roboy/middleware/MotorStatus

rostopic echo /roboy/middleware/MotorStatus

• check for available rostopic and services:

  rostopic list
  rosservice list
  

• type definitions for msgs and srvs are in roboy_communication/middleware or on https://github.com/Roboy/roboy_communication/tree/master/middleware

3. The control commands are set by publishing ROS messages under /roboy/middleware/MotorCommand:

rostopic pub /roboy/middleware/MotorCommand roboy_middleware_msgs/MotorCommand "id: 0 
  	motors: [0,1]
  	setPoints: [0,0]"

4. (Optional) Configure motor mode by calling ROS service /roboy/middleware/MotorConfig

• available control modes:
  • 0: position (encoder ticks with rad_per_encoder_count: 0.00005788606746738269)
  • 1: velocity (rad/s) - untested!
  • 2: displacement (encoder ticks)
  • force mode is available only from GUI and requires a YAML file with spring constants
  • example transform from displacement to force
  • myomuscle calibration file is required, specify the path in GUI (start by calling rqt)
  • Plugins->Roboy->roboy motor calibration
  • use myomuscle tab

5. Start GUI (the plots show all the motors together encoded in different colors)

rqt

Daemon

You can find the daemon in scripts/automaticRoboyPlexusLauncherDaemon, execute the following commands for installing the daemon on the fpga:

sudo mv automaticRoboyPlexusLauncherDaemon /etc/init.d/
echo "/etc/init.d/automaticRoboyPlexusLauncherDaemon start" >> ~/.bashrc
sudo ln -s /home/root/roboy_plexus /usr/local/bin/roboy_plexus 

Edit the file /lib/systemd/system/[email protected] and replace the line:

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --keep-baud 115200,38400,9600 %I $TERM

with auto-login:

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin root --keep-baud 115200,38400,9600 %I $TERM

This will auto-login root when the fpga boots and the daemon is started via the bashrc entry.