Tinymovr ROS Hardware Interface

A ROS package that provides hardware interfacing for the Tinymovr motor controller. This interface allows for seamless integration of Tinymovr devices with ROS-based robotic systems, offering joint state and control through ROS topics and services.

Features

• Real-time reading of joint positions, velocities, and efforts.
• Ability to send joint command setpoints.
• Error handling and robust exception management.
• Compatible with standard ROS controllers, enabling a plug-and-play experience.

Prerequisites

• ROS (Robot Operating System) - Tested with ROS Noetic, but should be compatible with other versions.
• SocketCAN tools and utilities installed.
• Tinymovr devices with firmware 1.6.x
• Devices properly set up and calibrated.

Note

If you plan to use the CANine adapter, you need to flash it with the Candlelight firmware, which is compatible with socketcan. Use this web-based flasher for easy upgrade. Use Chrome and choose the Candlelight firmware from the drop-down list.

Installation

1. Navigate to your catkin workspace's source folder:

cd ~/catkin_ws/src/

2. Clone the repository:

git clone git@github.com:tinymovr/Tinymovr-ROS.git

3. Build your catkin workspace:

cd ~/catkin_ws/
catkin_make

4. Source the workspace:

source devel/setup.bash

Bring up Socketcan

Depending on your device you may need to add the correct module to the kernel. Following that, bring up the interface as follows:

sudo ip link set can0 type can bitrate 1000000

Run the Diffbot demo!

1. Ensure your Tinymovr instances are calibrated and well tuned, test functioning using Tinymovr Studio or CLI.

2. Configure your hardware in config/hardware.yaml and diff drive config in config/diff_drive_config.yaml

3. Start the tinymovr_diffbot_demo_node node:

roslaunch tinymovr_ros tinymovr_diffbot_demo_node.launch

4. Spin up a keyboard teleop and drive your robot:

rosrun teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard.py cmd_vel:=/diff_drive_controller/cmd_vel

Configuration

To customize the behavior of the Tinymovr ROS, adjust the parameters in the config directory. Here, you can set specifics about each joint, including joint names, IDs, and other parameters relevant to your hardware setup.

API Documentation

Further details about the API and individual functions can be found in the generated Doxygen documentation. Please refer to the documentation for advanced use cases.

Contributing

Contributions to improve and expand the functionality of Tinymovr ROS are welcome! Please open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub repository.

External Links

ROS Wiki Page

License

This package is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.