Situation report & math libraries
Peter Soetens <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.science.robotics.orocos.user |
|---|---|
| Organization | KU Leuven |
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
Hello, 1. Present state Here at the KU Leuven, we are iteratively designing and building components and a software framework for Orocos. For the time being we focus mainly on motion control and the Orocos core functionality (how a component skeleton looks like, event handling, monitoring,...). We consider the written code as production code, however with less features than the final product. We are working on a paper which explains our findings / ideas. Anyone who is interested in the motion control can contact us for reading / feedback. Any other progress in other domains is also very welcome on the list. It is our aim to provide a framework in which the user only has to fill in some well defined parts, like the trajectory algorithm or the controller algorithm. 2. Mathematical libraries Next, we have to decide which math library we will use. Since Orocos should be multi platform and "library independent" or at least very portable, we think it is best to provide and extra lib-to-Orocos layer between any library we will use and the Orocos framework (the Adapter or Wrapper software pattern) . The main task is then to identify the needed key functions for mathematical operations, and declare this [email protected]. When a certain mathematical library is to be used, the wrapper has to fill in the conversion to the Orocos namespace. As a consequence, for each new library we want to use, one wrapper has to be written. We have two suggestions : Octave (extesive and sloppy) and R (small but clean). Other suggestions are welcome too. 3. The overall environment We plan to use similar wrappers for threading primitives, Input/Output and every system dependent function call. Many other data structures have to be chosen. How will a position / velocity be stored in the system? (We are working on this in the kin-dyn workgroup) We would like to have all these questions answered before the end of this month (remember the derivable). 4. Cooperation We hope others share some ideas too (for example "There should be a function that can ...." ). We will make a new section on the orocos homepage where the evolving structures, API, etc will be listed in order to enhance feedback and collaboration. kind regards, Peter