Ethercat driver for OROCOS

Hello,

I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.

I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
but got no answer.

I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
following thesis very promising:

http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...

I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
necessary.

Where can we get this driver?

If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
together with orocos and xenomai?

Any hints appreciated.

Uwe Fechner
www.kitepower.eu

----------------------------------------
Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
Kluyverweg 1,
2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:

> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>
> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
> but got no answer.
>
> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
> following thesis very promising:
>
> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>
> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
> necessary.
>
> Where can we get this driver?
>
> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
> together with orocos and xenomai?
>
> Any hints appreciated.

Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
systems running with Orocos in our lab.

> Uwe Fechner
> www.kitepower.eu

Herman

> ----------------------------------------
> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
> Delft University of Technology
> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
> Kluyverweg 1,
> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
> Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

Thanks a lot for the link to SOEM.

For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.

Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.

Regards:

Uwe Fechner

On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>
>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>
>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>> but got no answer.
>>
>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>> following thesis very promising:
>>
>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>
>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>> necessary.
>>
>> Where can we get this driver?
>>
>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>
>> Any hints appreciated.
> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>
>> Uwe Fechner
>> www.kitepower.eu
> Herman
>
>> ----------------------------------------
>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>> Delft University of Technology
>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>> Kluyverweg 1,
>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ruben Smits's picture

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

On 13 Apr 2011, at 21:37, Uwe Fechner wrote:

> Thanks a lot for the link to SOEM.
>
> For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
> Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.
>
> Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.
>

We have a generic soem ethercat master and some slave drivers available at http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git

For your information, I have a patch for SOEM lying around that makes it use RTNet if available, this should make SOEM hard realtime in a xenomai or rtai setting equipped with RTNet. It needs some further testing before I can release it. So stay tuned if you're interested.

> Regards:
>
> Uwe Fechner
>

-- Ruben

> On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>
>>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>>
>>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>>> but got no answer.
>>>
>>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>>> following thesis very promising:
>>>
>>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>>
>>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>>> necessary.
>>>
>>> Where can we get this driver?
>>>
>>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>>
>>> Any hints appreciated.
>> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
>> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
>> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
>> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>>
>>> Uwe Fechner
>>> www.kitepower.eu
>> Herman
>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>> Delft University of Technology
>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

Thank you very much for the drivers.

You suggested, to use RTNet. Is SOEM not hard real-time capable, if used
with xenomai and without
RTNet? Should I buy a special Ethernet card, or can I use the on-board
Ethernet card of the Intel 945GSE
chipset of the motherboard, that I want to use?
I need a guarantied I/O latency of less then 1 ms with an Intel Atom CPU
(1,6 GHz).

Best regards:

Uwe Fechner

On 13.04.2011 21:43, Ruben Smits wrote:
> On 13 Apr 2011, at 21:37, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>
>> Thanks a lot for the link to SOEM.
>>
>> For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
>> Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.
>>
>> Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.
>>
> We have a generic soem ethercat master and some slave drivers available at http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git
>
> For your information, I have a patch for SOEM lying around that makes it use RTNet if available, this should make SOEM hard realtime in a xenomai or rtai setting equipped with RTNet. It needs some further testing before I can release it. So stay tuned if you're interested.
>
>
>> Regards:
>>
>> Uwe Fechner
>>
> -- Ruben
>
>> On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>>
>>>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>>>
>>>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>>>> but got no answer.
>>>>
>>>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>>>> following thesis very promising:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>>>
>>>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>>>> necessary.
>>>>
>>>> Where can we get this driver?
>>>>
>>>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>>>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>>>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>>>
>>>> Any hints appreciated.
>>> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
>>> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
>>> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
>>> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>>>
>>>> Uwe Fechner
>>>> www.kitepower.eu
>>> Herman
>>>
>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>>> Delft University of Technology
>>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ruben Smits's picture

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

On 14 Apr 2011, at 08:58, Uwe Fechner wrote:

> Thank you very much for the drivers.
>
> You suggested, to use RTNet. Is SOEM not hard real-time capable, if used
> with xenomai and without
> RTNet?

SOEM uses normal Linux socket system calls (open, bind, recv, send). My patch replaces these calls by rt_dev calls. These replacement prevents context-switches (hard <-> soft realtime) in the component if it is running in realtime using Xenomai/RTAI. You will need RTNet if you want hard realtime EtherCAT communication.

> Should I buy a special Ethernet card, or can I use the on-board
> Ethernet card of the Intel 945GSE
> chipset of the motherboard, that I want to use?

If you want to use RTNet, you should check which cards they support, http://www.rtnet.org/doc has a list. I guess most of these cards are appropriate for EtherCAT but you should check the beckhoff site for this.

> I need a guarantied I/O latency of less then 1 ms with an Intel Atom CPU
> (1,6 GHz).

I did not do any latency measurements yet with SOEM or our component. But I have a similar hardware setup in our lab so if I find the time I'll look into this. It would be nice to have a comparison of the latencies in Linux/Xenomai with/without RTNet.

> Best regards:
>
> Uwe Fechner

-- Ruben

>
> On 13.04.2011 21:43, Ruben Smits wrote:
>> On 13 Apr 2011, at 21:37, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks a lot for the link to SOEM.
>>>
>>> For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
>>> Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.
>>>
>>> Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.
>>>
>> We have a generic soem ethercat master and some slave drivers available at http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git
>>
>> For your information, I have a patch for SOEM lying around that makes it use RTNet if available, this should make SOEM hard realtime in a xenomai or rtai setting equipped with RTNet. It needs some further testing before I can release it. So stay tuned if you're interested.
>>
>>
>>> Regards:
>>>
>>> Uwe Fechner
>>>
>> -- Ruben
>>
>>> On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>>>>
>>>>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>>>>> but got no answer.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>>>>> following thesis very promising:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>>>>
>>>>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>>>>> necessary.
>>>>>
>>>>> Where can we get this driver?
>>>>>
>>>>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>>>>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>>>>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>>>>
>>>>> Any hints appreciated.
>>>> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
>>>> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
>>>> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
>>>> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>>>>
>>>>> Uwe Fechner
>>>>> www.kitepower.eu
>>>> Herman
>>>>
>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>>>> Delft University of Technology
>>>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Ruben Smits wrote:

>
> On 14 Apr 2011, at 08:58, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>
>> Thank you very much for the drivers.
>>
>> You suggested, to use RTNet. Is SOEM not hard real-time capable, if used
>> with xenomai and without
>> RTNet?
>
> SOEM uses normal Linux socket system calls (open, bind, recv, send). My patch replaces these calls by rt_dev calls. These replacement prevents context-switches (hard <-> soft realtime) in the component if it is running in realtime using Xenomai/RTAI. You will need RTNet if you want hard realtime EtherCAT communication.
>
>> Should I buy a special Ethernet card, or can I use the on-board
>> Ethernet card of the Intel 945GSE
>> chipset of the motherboard, that I want to use?
>
> If you want to use RTNet, you should check which cards they support,
> http://www.rtnet.org/doc has a list. I guess most of these cards are
> appropriate for EtherCAT but you should check the beckhoff site for this.

It is not just the Ethernet chipset which is important, but also how this
chipset is connected to the motherboard architecture; e.g., the way in
which PCI interrupts are assigned can play a _major_ role in realtime
performance... Experience shows that your chances of being disappointed are
rather high :-(

>> I need a guarantied I/O latency of less then 1 ms with an Intel Atom CPU
>> (1,6 GHz).
>
> I did not do any latency measurements yet with SOEM or our component. But
> I have a similar hardware setup in our lab so if I find the time I'll
> look into this. It would be nice to have a comparison of the latencies in
> Linux/Xenomai with/without RTNet.

The problem is finding an appropriate "data set" that really stresstests
the performance. (And this 'data set' must be a 'live' activity over the
network, obviously.)

>> Best regards:
>>
>> Uwe Fechner
>
> -- Ruben

Herman

>> On 13.04.2011 21:43, Ruben Smits wrote:
>>> On 13 Apr 2011, at 21:37, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks a lot for the link to SOEM.
>>>>
>>>> For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
>>>> Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.
>>>>
>>>> Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.
>>>>
>>> We have a generic soem ethercat master and some slave drivers available at http://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git
>>>
>>> For your information, I have a patch for SOEM lying around that makes it use RTNet if available, this should make SOEM hard realtime in a xenomai or rtai setting equipped with RTNet. It needs some further testing before I can release it. So stay tuned if you're interested.
>>>
>>>
>>>> Regards:
>>>>
>>>> Uwe Fechner
>>>>
>>> -- Ruben
>>>
>>>> On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>>>>>> but got no answer.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>>>>>> following thesis very promising:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>>>>>> necessary.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Where can we get this driver?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>>>>>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>>>>>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any hints appreciated.
>>>>> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
>>>>> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
>>>>> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
>>>>> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Uwe Fechner
>>>>>> www.kitepower.eu
>>>>> Herman
>>>>>
>>>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>>>>> Delft University of Technology
>>>>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>>>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>>>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>>>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> Orocos-Users mailing list
>>>>>> Orocos-Users [..] ...
>>>>>> http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos-users
>>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Eng., Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group
>>>>> <http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~bruyninc> Tel: +32 16 328056
>>>>> EURON Coordinator (European Robotics Research Network) <http://www.euron.org>
>>>>> Open Realtime Control Services <http://www.orocos.org>
>>>>> Associate Editor JOSER <http://www.joser.org>, IJRR <http://www.ijrr.org>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ----------------------------------------
>>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>>> Delft University of Technology
>>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902
>>>> --
>>>> Orocos-Users mailing list
>>>> Orocos-Users [..] ...
>>>> http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos-users
>>
>

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
> Ethercat driver for OROCOS

Hi,

I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move a
track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth box and
it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.

We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
control that track with our software.

I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the slave
would be the Rexroth controller. My question is, following this thread, a part
of the hardware procedure (network card, wires, etc) which is the procedure to
use Ethercat with orocos and soem with a different hardware?

Best regards,

Leo

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

On 14 April 2011 13:12, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda
<leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...> wrote:
> A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
>> Ethercat driver for OROCOS
>
> Hi,
>
> I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move a
> track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth  box and
> it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.
>

Which Rexroth box do you have?

> We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
> control that track with our software.
>
> I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the slave
> would be the Rexroth controller. My question is, following this thread, a part
> of the hardware procedure (network card, wires, etc) which is the procedure to
> use Ethercat with orocos and soem with a different hardware?
>

You have to write a device file for your specific box, like the ones
in soem_beckhoff_drivers.
For this you need the IO map of your device, this should be provided by Rexroth.

> Best regards,
>
> Leo
>
> --
> --
> Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda <leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...>
> Institut d'Organització i Control de Sistemes Industrials
> Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
> Avda. Diagonal 647, pl. 11
> 08028 BARCELONA (Spain)
>
> Tel. +34-934017163
> Fax. +34-934016605
> --
> Orocos-Users mailing list
> Orocos-Users [..] ...
> http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos-users
>

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda wrote:

> A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
>> Ethercat driver for OROCOS
>
> Hi,
>
> I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move a
> track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth box and
> it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.
>
> We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
> control that track with our software.
>
> I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the slave
> would be the Rexroth controller.

I prefer to look at peer-to-peer architectures... And you probably will
_have_ to, since most industrial control boxes do not have a "slave mode" :-(

> My question is, following this thread, a part of the hardware procedure
> (network card, wires, etc) which is the procedure to use Ethercat with
> orocos and soem with a different hardware?

I do not fully understand the question: I parse it as follows:
"apart of the hardware procedure, which is the procedure to use Ethercat with
orocos, and soem with a different hardware?"
But maybe you have another parsing of the sentence in mind...?

Herman

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
> On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda wrote:
>
> > A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
> >> Ethercat driver for OROCOS
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move
a
> > track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth box
and
> > it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.
> >
> > We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
> > control that track with our software.
> >
> > I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the
slave
> > would be the Rexroth controller.
>
> I prefer to look at peer-to-peer architectures... And you probably will
> _have_ to, since most industrial control boxes do not have a "slave mode"
:-(
>
> > My question is, following this thread, a part of the hardware procedure
> > (network card, wires, etc) which is the procedure to use Ethercat with
> > orocos and soem with a different hardware?
>
> I do not fully understand the question: I parse it as follows:
> "apart of the hardware procedure, which is the procedure to use Ethercat
with
> orocos, and soem with a different hardware?"
> But maybe you have another parsing of the sentence in mind...?

:-)

really my sentences are horrible .....

well, I'm talking about that, the procedure to connect a external controller
to a orocos component would have different steps:
- hardware connectivity: which network card, which wire, etc
- system part: driver, (rtnet, standard network..)
- SOEM part .... library?

I suppose that SOAP offers a layer to access to slaves to send data. But, how
do I know which data have i to send?

I have read some documentation with a long list of parameters of the
controller, but I don't know if it's specific to one controller of for all.

Best regards,

Leo

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

On 14 April 2011 15:11, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda
<leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...> wrote:
> A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
>> On Thu, 14 Apr 2011, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda wrote:
>>
>> > A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
>> >> Ethercat driver for OROCOS
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move
> a
>> > track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth  box
> and
>> > it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.
>> >
>> > We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
>> > control that track with our software.
>> >
>> > I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the
> slave
>> > would be the Rexroth controller.
>>
>> I prefer to look at peer-to-peer architectures... And you probably will
>> _have_ to, since most industrial control boxes do not have a "slave mode"
> :-(
>>
>> > My question is, following this thread, a part of the hardware procedure
>> > (network card, wires, etc) which is the procedure to use Ethercat with
>> > orocos and soem with a different hardware?
>>
>> I do not fully understand the question: I parse it as follows:
>>   "apart of the hardware procedure, which is the procedure to use Ethercat
> with
>>    orocos, and soem with a different hardware?"
>> But maybe you have another parsing of the sentence in mind...?
>
> :-)
>
> really my sentences are horrible .....
>
> well, I'm talking about that, the procedure to connect a external controller
> to a orocos component would have different steps:
> - hardware connectivity: which network card, which wire, etc

We noticed that using Intel NIC works the best for us, also I had
better results using CAT6 than CAT5E cable (some brands of CAT5E don't
seem to work)

> - system part: driver, (rtnet, standard network..)

This is depending on your application.

> - SOEM part .... library?

If you git clone git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git and the
Orocos toolchain
git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/orocos_toolchain_ros.git
In a Ros Diamondback setup (easiest is to
http://www.ros.org/wiki/diamondback/Installation/Ubuntu with the
prebuild packages) you should be able to build the soem and orocos RTT
pretty easily.

You can look at soem_beckhof_drivers or soem_ebox to have an idea what
you'll need to implement for your specific device.

>
> I suppose that SOAP offers a layer to access to slaves to send data. But, how
> do I know which data have i to send?
>
> I have read some documentation with a long list of parameters of the
> controller, but I don't know if it's specific to one controller of for all.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Leo
>
> --
> --
> Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda <leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...>
> Institut d'Organització i Control de Sistemes Industrials
> Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
> Avda. Diagonal 647, pl. 11
> 08028 BARCELONA (Spain)
>
> Tel. +34-934017163
> Fax. +34-934016605
> --
> Orocos-Users mailing list
> Orocos-Users [..] ...
> http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos-users
>

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

A Divendres, 15 d'abril de 2011, koen buys va escriure:
[....]
> >
> > well, I'm talking about that, the procedure to connect a external
controller
> > to a orocos component would have different steps:
> > - hardware connectivity: which network card, which wire, etc
>
> We noticed that using Intel NIC works the best for us, also I had
> better results using CAT6 than CAT5E cable (some brands of CAT5E don't
> seem to work)

ok, we have also good reference for the Intel NICs. We have a CAT5plus Beckoff
cable, specially for Ethercat so I hope it should work.

> > - system part: driver, (rtnet, standard network..)
>
> This is depending on your application.

ok.

> > - SOEM part .... library?
>
> If you git clone git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git and the
> Orocos toolchain
> git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/orocos_toolchain_ros.git
> In a Ros Diamondback setup (easiest is to
> http://www.ros.org/wiki/diamondback/Installation/Ubuntu with the
> prebuild packages) you should be able to build the soem and orocos RTT
> pretty easily.
>
> You can look at soem_beckhof_drivers or soem_ebox to have an idea what
> you'll need to implement for your specific device.

Are you talking about this?

http://www.ros.org/doc/api/soem_beckhoff_drivers/html/soem__el4004_8cpp_...

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

On 15 April 2011 12:55, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda
<leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...> wrote:
> A Divendres, 15 d'abril de 2011, koen buys va escriure:
> [....]
>> >
>> > well, I'm talking about that, the procedure to connect a external
> controller
>> > to a orocos component would have different steps:
>> > - hardware connectivity: which network card, which wire, etc
>>
>> We noticed that using Intel NIC works the best for us, also I had
>> better results using CAT6 than CAT5E cable (some brands of CAT5E don't
>> seem to work)
>
> ok, we have also good reference for the Intel NICs. We have a CAT5plus Beckoff
> cable, specially for Ethercat so I hope it should work.
>
>> > - system part: driver, (rtnet, standard network..)
>>
>> This is depending on your application.
>
> ok.
>
>> > - SOEM part .... library?
>>
>> If you git clone git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/soem.git and the
>> Orocos toolchain
>> git://git.mech.kuleuven.be/robotics/orocos_toolchain_ros.git
>> In a Ros Diamondback setup (easiest is to
>> http://www.ros.org/wiki/diamondback/Installation/Ubuntu with the
>> prebuild packages) you should be able to build the soem and orocos RTT
>> pretty easily.
>>
>> You can look at soem_beckhof_drivers or soem_ebox to have an idea what
>> you'll need to implement for your specific device.
>
> Are you talking about this?
>
> http://www.ros.org/doc/api/soem_beckhoff_drivers/html/soem__el4004_8cpp_...
>
>

Indeed, this you need to create for your specific device.

> --
> --
> Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda <leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...>
> Institut d'Organització i Control de Sistemes Industrials
> Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
> Avda. Diagonal 647, pl. 11
> 08028 BARCELONA (Spain)
>
> Tel. +34-934017163
> Fax. +34-934016605
>

Ethercat driver for OROCOS. Some infromation..

A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, koen buys va escriure:
> On 14 April 2011 13:12, Leopold Palomo-Avellaneda
> <leopold [dot] palomo [..] ...> wrote:
> > A Dijous, 14 d'abril de 2011, Herman Bruyninckx va escriure:
> >> Ethercat driver for OROCOS
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have follow this thread with a lot of interest. We have drive that move
a
> > track with one of our robots. The driver is controller by a Rexroth box
and
> > it has multiprotocol and one of them is EtherCat.
> >
>
> Which Rexroth box do you have?

Indradrive HCS02

>
> > We move our track with the Rexroth software, but our idea (wish ...) is to
> > control that track with our software.
> >
> > I understand that the master would be the computer with Orocos and the
slave
> > would be the Rexroth controller. My question is, following this thread, a
part
> > of the hardware procedure (network card, wires, etc) which is the
procedure to
> > use Ethercat with orocos and soem with a different hardware?
> >
>
> You have to write a device file for your specific box, like the ones
> in soem_beckhoff_drivers.
> For this you need the IO map of your device, this should be provided by
Rexroth.

ok, but which is the information that I should have?

Best regards,

Leo

Ethercat driver for OROCOS

On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:

> For some unknown reason I thought, that EML and SOEM would be the same.
> Maybe, because EML is mentioned on the homepage of xenomai, and SOEM is not.

> Now I only have to learn, how to use SOEM with OROCOS components.

Use the mailing list! :-) Or come to Leuven and immerse yourself in the
local developers activities :-)

> Regards:
>
> Uwe Fechner

Herman
>
> On 13.04.2011 20:19, Herman Bruyninckx wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Apr 2011, Uwe Fechner wrote:
>>
>>> I am trying to get an Ethercat driver for OROCOS.
>>>
>>> I wrote an email to these people: http://ethercatmaster.berlios.de/ ,
>>> but got no answer.
>>>
>>> I would like to use their driver, because I found the report in the
>>> following thesis very promising:
>>>
>>> http://www.ce.utwente.nl/rtweb/publications/MSc2010/pdf-files/016CE2010_...
>>>
>>> I would be acceptable for us, to sign some kind of license agreement, if
>>> necessary.
>>>
>>> Where can we get this driver?
>>>
>>> If there is no possibility, to get it any longer, does the ethercat
>>> driver from http://www.etherlab.org/en/ethercat/index.php work well
>>> together with orocos and xenomai?
>>>
>>> Any hints appreciated.
>> Most of the labs I know use SOEM <http://soem.berlios.de />, created via TU
>> Eindhoven and Ketels. Orocos has good
>> support for it, since we have already a dozen or so EtherCat-based control
>> systems running with Orocos in our lab.
>>
>>> Uwe Fechner
>>> www.kitepower.eu
>> Herman
>>
>>> ----------------------------------------
>>> Uwe Fechner, M.Sc.
>>> Delft University of Technology
>>> Faculty of Aerospace Engineering/ASSET
>>> Kluyverweg 1,
>>> 2629 HS Delft, The Netherlands
>>> Phone: +31-15-27-88902
>>> --
>>> Orocos-Users mailing list
>>> Orocos-Users [..] ...
>>> http://lists.mech.kuleuven.be/mailman/listinfo/orocos-users
>>>
>> --
>> K.U.Leuven, Mechanical Eng., Mechatronics & Robotics Research Group
>> <http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~bruyninc> Tel: +32 16 328056
>> EURON Coordinator (European Robotics Research Network) <http://www.euron.org>
>> Open Realtime Control Services <http://www.orocos.org>
>> Associate Editor JOSER <http://www.joser.org>, IJRR <http://www.ijrr.org>
>
>