Tuesday 25 March 2014

Armdroid Library

The software section has been just updated to include the newly released Armdroid Library and includes details of the GIT source repository.

The Armdroid Library has been developed especially with portability in mind, but at the moment, only Arduino is currently supported.  Hopefully this will change when support is added for other platforms and micro-controllers.

Summary of key library features:
  • Responsible for all low-level control & dynamics
  • Configurable which I/O pins are used for interface connections
  • Reusable class structure design
  • Drives single/multiple motors
  • Variable speed control
  • Maintains channel offset counters
  • Custom motor channel re-mapping (table driven)
  • Supports multiple addressing modes

The library includes examples, which also contains the slave Serial Driver uploaded to my Arduino Leonardo and demonstrated at UCP (see previous post) driven by a Raspberry Pi.   More example programs will be added, and I'll also be writing various Tutorials how to write your own programs, and build different interfacing circuits using this library.

The library currently supports different Armdroid models - this includes addressing modes for both "prototype" and "production" models with the single-interface boards.  Prototype variants will however need to be configured as Direct-Drive (see resources section for clarification).  By default, the library assumes your interfacing a production model; otherwise for prototype models, simply add #define INTERFACE_PROTOTYPE  before all include statements in your sketches.

Hopefully, owners wanting to experiment with interfacing their Armdroid to Arduino (and later Raspberry Pi) will be interested in this library, and all comments/suggestions for enhancements gratefully received.

That said...  I've also been receiving correspondence from people interested in controlling their Armdroid from IBM PC and compatibles.  Of course, Arduino is ideal for achieving this purpose, and is relatively inexpensive.  We can use USB/Serial connectivity to interface the device, and the same Serial Driver program included with the library can be used without modification.

Because of the amount of interest shown, a slight digression will include developing a variant of LEARN for Windows.  This will be followed with Tutorials how to install, and configure the software.

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