Libbarrett 3.0.0

Libbarrett is a real-time controls library written in C++ that runs Barrett Technology products (WAM and BarrettHand)

This version of Libbarrett works with a non-real-time kernel (a low-latency Ubuntu 22.04 kernel) and should only be used when a hard real-time guarantee is not critical for your application.

General

Disable unattended upgrades

apt remove unattended-upgrades

Download package

cd && git clone https://github.com/personalrobotics/libbarrett

Install dependencies

cd ~/libbarrett/scripts && ~/libbarrett/scripts/install_dependencies.sh

Reboot into the new kernel (after reboot, "uname -r" should show "lowlatency"):

sudo reboot

Build and install the Peak pcan driver

We recommend the following CAN hardware:

• PCAN-PCI
• PCAN-PCIe
• PCAN-USB
• PCAN-ISA

NOTE: These cards are supported by the SocketCAN driver built into Linux, however, we have found that the SocketCAN txbuffer can occasionally fail to send CAN frames without reporting an error, and this causes the WAM to E-Stop itself unexpectedly. This can happen a few seconds, a few minutes, or even several hours after starting a WAM application. Fortunately, Peak offers an alternative driver (pcan) which is still socket-based but avoids this SocketCAN bug.

You can install that PCAN driver here:

sh ~/libbarrett/scripts/install_pcan.sh

For PCAN-ISA only, manually configure the driver (not plug-and-play):

sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/pcan.conf <<EOF
options pcan type=isa,isa io=0x300,0x320 irq=7,5
install pcan modprobe --ignore-install pcan
EOF
echo 'pcan' |sudo tee -a /etc/modules-load.d/modules.conf

Reboot to use the new CAN driver (after reboot, both "cat /proc/pcan" and "ifconfig" should list can0):

sudo reboot

You may need to run reset_can.sh before can0 appears in ifconfig.

Build libbarrett

cd ~/libbarrett
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

Install libbarrett

sudo make install

Build the libbarrett example programs

cd ~/libbarrett/examples
mkdir build
cmake ..
make -j$(nproc)

Additional Makefile targets

Optional: Update or install configuration files only - not necessary if you have already done a full make (above)

make install_config

Optional: Package the library as a tar-ball (not common)

make package

Configuration Files for the WAM

Upon installation of libbarrett, the configuration files of the robot are installed to the /etc/barrett directory. However, to give an additional flexibility of each user maintaining their own configurations for the same robot, by default, the configuration files are read from ~/.barrett directory if it exists. If not, then libbarrett reads the necessary configuration files from /etc/barrett/ directory. It is up to the user to maintain and populate the ~/.barrett directory.

Eclipse IDE setup

It is possible to use CMake to generate several output formats, including Eclipse CDT4 project files. For details, see: http://www.paraview.org/Wiki/Eclipse_CDT4_Generator To generate Eclipse project files, run:

cmake . -G"Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles"

Then import the generated project into your Eclipse workspace using: File -> Import -> General -> Existing Projects into Workspace

BURT Util

burt-util is a BURT firmware management Utility with commands that allow you to easily upgrade firmware, flash a bootloader, connect to the firmware via CAN and CoAP, and much more.

Installing burl-util

Download the utils from https://git.barrett.com/burt/software/burt-util/ and install them.

curl 'https://git.barrett.com/burt/software/burt-util/-/jobs/40381/artifacts/download'  --output  burt-util-dev-3.7.3-deb.zip 
unzip burt-util-dev-3.7.3-deb.zip
sudo dpkg -i burt-util_3.7.3_amd64.deb 

Enumerating the pucks on the CAN bus

burt-util offers a variety of functions. E.g. enumerating the devices on the bus. For that to work, you need to specify the ID of the CAN bus in .config/barrett/burt_util.toml. For example burt-util enumerate, should output

Searching for nodes
  [####################################]  100%          
Found: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]