lennos22/2022-urt-arm-firmware

Arm Firmware

The robotic arm firmware for controlling the movement of the arm. (This sentence is incredibly stupid and redundant. Who the hell wrote this...?)

Firmware for the Robotic Arm. Developed using the STM32CubeIDE, which uses the GCC toolchain. It uses micro-ROS to interface with ROS 2 (Foxy) via TTL UART.

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• Dependencies
• Prerequisites
• Setup Procedure
  • Import repository to STM32CubeIDE
  • Create the "libmicroros" folder
  • Get packages listed in ROS 2 packages
  • Build and run the project!
• Interfacing with ROS 2
• ROS 2 Packages
  • Adding Custom Packages
• Rebuilding micro-ROS

Dependencies

• Windows 10 (If installing on Windows)
• Ubuntu 20.04 (If installing on Linux)
• ROS 2 (Foxy)
• micro-ROS
  • micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils

Prerequisites

• STM32CubeIDE (version 1.11.2)
• Docker

  • You can install Docker Desktop

    OR

  • You can install Docker Engine using apt repository on Ubuntu

Setup Procedure

There's some minor, yet important, differences when building on either Operating System.

Import repository to STM32CubeIDE

There are two ways you can do this:

• Option A: Install EGit using the STM32CubeIDE Eclipse Marketplace (Help -> Eclipse Marketplace and search for "EGit") and import the project in STM32CubeIDE via File -> Import and select Git -> Projects from Git
  • You need to select the stm32 branch
  • Ensure "Clone submodules" is ticked
• Option B: Clone the repository and import the project in STM32CubeIDE
  • Checkout the stm32 branch
  • MAKE SURE you fetch the submodules

(Note that micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils is a submodule of the repo, and for some reason submodules have their HEADs on the non-Main branches detached when they're cloned. You may want to ensure that you git checkout the foxy branch before you move on to the next step. Though, from my testing, this doesn't seem completely necessary. Still, it doesn't hurt...)

Create the "libmicroros" folder

Create a new folder called libmicroros in <project_dir>/micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils/microros_static_library_ide/. You can do this in your File Explorer or you can do it in the STM32CubeIDE Project Explorer

Get packages listed in ROS 2 packages

See the Adding Custom Packages section for more information

Note I don't quite know where to put the packages, yet...

Build and run the project!

The build script for micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils requires Docker:

• Windows users: Ensure that Docker is running everytime you build
• Linux users: Ensure that that non-privileged users can run Docker

Interfacing with ROS 2

TODO... For now, go to First micro-ROS Application on FreeRTOS for more information

ROS 2 Packages

No packages to add, currently :D

TODO... Link The appropriate package repo(s) or smth, idk...

Adding Custom Packages

Add your packages to microros_static_library_ide/library_generation/extra-packages folder or, if you have your packages stored in an online repository, the folder also contains a file called extra_packages.repos where you can add an entry containing your package repo.

More information can be found here.

Rebuilding micro-ROS

You will generally want to do this when micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils is updated; a change in the micro_ros_stm32cubemex_utils distro is required; or when a new ROS 2 package dependency has been added.

To rebuild micro-ROS, follow these steps:

1. Go to micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils/microros_static_library_ide/libmicroros and delete libmicroros.a (or, you can rename/move it if you want a backup for some reason). This will "trick" the build script into thinking that micro-ROS is no longer built into the project.
2. Double check that micro_ros_stm32cubemx_utils is checked out to the latest version on your desired branch, and/or you have your custom packages correctly added into the build system
3. Build and run the project!

Zac Sux :P