Sheldrake

Sheldrake (“duck” in Early Modern English) creates a shell of Drake for embedded systems. Specifically, it is a C++ toolbox that aims to interactively apply control policies written and simulated with Drake to embedded systems.

Using custom software written for the embedded system using the Sheldrake Interpreter library:

• Sensor data can be connected to the SI inputs (the variable inputs in any cpl::Controller class)
• The control policy is generated using the update() function of cpl::Controller class, and the results are in its outputs field.
• (A template is availalble here).

The Sheldrake library depoloys Drake control policies to embedded systems as follows:

• The control policy is serialized.
• The serialized data is sent to an Arduino or other embedded system through a Serial connection.
• The serialized data is interpreted through a Sheldrake Interpreter on the embedded system.

This is currently a proof-of-concept and only applies PID and LQR models at this point. It is tested Ubuntu 22.04 with the latest stable version of Drake.

Supported Configuration:

• Operating System: Ubuntu 22.04
• Minimum C++ Version: 20 (gcc 12+)
• Little-endian (most x86-64/aarch64 CPUs)

Getting Started

Install Drake and other necessary dependencies.

Navigate to the root folder of your local Sheldrake clone and run:

sh configure.sh

Building the project and all examples is similar to most other CMake projects.

mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
make

An early prototype of a Sheldrake-enabled LQR controller on an inverted pendulum can be found here.