Introduction | I want my driver now ! | Classic Installation | ROS Installation | Docker containers

Introduction

powerboard-driver allows you to pilot powerboards over I2C, from a Single Board Computer (SBC) such as Jetson Nano or Raspberry PI 3. Ask a motor to turn in a direction, and the powerboard network takes care of everything !

powerboard-driver does not run on a powerboard's MCU, but rather on a computer acting as master for boards. The driver's task is to interface thesaid computer with multiple powerboard-firmware (i.e. multiple powerboards) on the same I2C wire.

This repository hosts code for:

• C++ backbone;
• Python interface;
• ROS Wrapper;
• Docker container for development;
• Documentation.

I want my driver now !

Run these commands

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/LMWafer/powerboard-driver.git
cd powerboard-driver/
make deps-minimal
make
sudo make install

This is equivalent to Minimal Installation: no Python binding, no example, no ROS wrapper.

Build from source

Clone with submodules

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/LMWafer/powerboard-driver.git
cd powerboard-driver/

Minimal mode (C++)

#-> Prerequisites
make deps-minimal
#-> Build
make
#-> Install
sudo make install

Full mode (C++ & Python & Examples)

#-> Prerequisites
make deps-full
#-> Build 
make build-full
#-> Install
sudo make install-full

ROS package build

The following instructions totally replace the above ones.

ROS package build has a dedicated process and location, do not perform it on a repo pre-cloned into a random directory.

#-> Install dependencies
sudo apt-get install -y python3-catkin-tools

#-> Setup  your catkin workspace
mkdir catkin_ws/ && cd catkin_ws/
catkin config --init --mkdirs --extend /opt/ros/<ROS_DISTRO>

#-> Clone with submodules
cd src/
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/LMWafer/powerboard-driver.git

#-> Build the driver in full mode
#-? Run once, library will persist accross catkin builds
make deps-full
make build-full
sudo make install-full
cd ../../

#-> Add other packages
# ...

#-> Build catkin workspace
#-? catkin will recursively look for ROS package into the repo directory, no need to specify path
catkin build
source devel/setup.bash

You only need to build the driver once: after that, if needed re-run process from Build catkin workspace.

Docker Containers

Containerized Development

Perequisites

• Ubuntu 20.04

• Docker (tested with Docker 20.10.7), see Install Docker Engine

• Docker Compose (tested with Docker Compose 1.29.2), see Install Docker Compose You may have a /usr/local/bin/docker-compose: no such file or directory error. In this case, use

  sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin/docker-compose

  before restarting the installation process

Get image on your machine

Download from Dockerhub

docker pull lmwafer/powerboard-driver-dev

Build from source

make docker-build

Start a container & open a shell inside

Provided shortcut

make up 
make enter

With Docker

docker run -it lmwafer/powerboard-driver-dev \
  --volume /dev:/dev \
  --volume ../:/ws/ \
  --name powerboard-driver-dev-container && \
docker exec -it powerboard-driver-dev-container bash

Stop a running container and remove it

Provided shortcut

make down

With Docker

docker stop powerboard-driver-dev-container
docker rm powerboard-driver-dev-container