IHS Boost

The ihs library of robot functions, from steady acceleration to servo movement

Installing

Dependencies

Some ihsboost modules have dependencies. The format below is dependency - modules - installation instructions

• libwallaby - servos, movement, create_extra - please use this branch to install libwallaby
• libjsoncpp - util - on linux, run sudo apt-get install libjsoncpp-dev to install
• libbluetooth - communicate - on linux, run sudo apt-get install libbluetooth-dev to install
• libboost_python - bindings - on linux, run sudo apt-get install libboost-python-dev to install

Getting the Source files

To get the source files on a wombat, the best way to do that is to start on your local computer. Run git clone https://github.com/ihsrobotics/ihsboost.git to get the github repository locally.

If you are going to install on an older wombat, make sure to run the following in the same directory on your local machine:

cd ./ihsboost
git switch older-wombat
cd ..

Finally, copy the directory over with the following command: scp -r ./ihsboost pi@(ipaddress):~/ where (ipaddress) should be the ip addresss (ie 192.168.125.1). This will copy ihsboost into the home directory of the wombat.

Wombat Build

To build on the wombat, run the following commands from terminal inside the ihsboost directory on the wombat

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
# important: do not use the -j4 flag when building on wombat
make -j4
sudo make install

If you plan on using the python bindings, run sudo ldconfig to index the ihsboost shared objects.

Note: you will need to use either the main branch or the older-wombat branch depending on whether you are using a new wombat or an old (original OS) wombat (see Getting the Source files)

Cross Compile

In order to cross-compile ihsboost, make sure to create a toolchain file. It should look something like this

# set the target architecture and system name (for raspberry pi, is aarch64)
set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME Linux)
set(CMAKE_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR aarch64)

# set the compiler you want to use
set(CMAKE_C_COMPILER clang)
set(CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER clang++)

# location of libs and includes to link/compile against
set(CMAKE_SYSROOT /path/to/your/sysroot)

# when using clang, make sure to set the c and cxx flags (cpu is optional)
set(CMAKE_C_FLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS} -O3 --target=${CMAKE_SYSTEM_PROCESSOR}-linux-gnu --sysroot=${CMAKE_SYSROOT} -mcpu=cortex-a53")
set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS}")

# when building a debian package, make sure to set this variable
# to the output of `dpkg --print-architecture` on the target machine
set(CPACK_DEBIAN_PACKAGE_ARCHITECTURE arm64)

# where you want to install the files locally before copying
# them to their final destination
set(CMAKE_STAGING_PREFIX /path/to/temporary/out)

Then, just specify the toolchain file when configuring with the option -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/path/to/your/toolchain/file. For example, to cross compile the full library, you could run

cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/path/to/your/toolchain/file`

After configuring with cmake, building can proceed normally

Other Build Options

The following are options that can be appended to the cmake command when configuring the project.

• -Dbuild_library=ON/OFF - build ihsboost, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_tests=OFF/ON - build tests to assure that ihsboost built successfully, defaults to OFF
• -Dbuild_debian=OFF/ON - build debian package for easy install / uninstall
• -Dwith_documentation=OFF/ON - build documentation files for the project, defaults to OFF
• -Droomba=ON/OFF - use roomba configs or not, defaults to ON
• -Dpython_version=XXX - use a specific version of python (for example, 3.9 or 3.10), defaults to 3.9, only relevant if building python bindings

The following are options to configure which ihsboost modules to build

• -Dbuild_bindings=ON/OFF- build python bindings, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_communicate=ON/OFF - build communicate, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_controllers=ON/OFF - build controllers, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_create_extra=ON/OFF - build extra create functionality (vacuum and brushes), defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_movement=ON/OFF - build movement functions, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_servos=ON/OFF - build servo movement functions, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_thread=ON/OFF - build threading classes, defaults to ON
• -Dbuild_util=ON/OFF - build util, defaults to ON

For example, cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -Dwith_documentation=ON -Dpython_version=3.10 will configure cmake to build the library and python bindings (since build_library and build_bindings default to ON) but will also make the documentation (since with_documentation was specified to ON) and use python 3.10 instean of python 3.9

Compiling programs with it

To compile a program with the ihsboost library, then assuming that you have already installed ihsboost, all you have to do is the following command to compile to form the executable ./a.out:

g++ (file) -lihsboost -lkipr -pthread -lrt -std=c++11

Note: (file) should be replaced by the name of the file that should be compiled.

Note: -lrt is only necessary on older wombats

Running python programs with it

To run a python program using ihsboost, import the python module ihs_bindings in your program. An example program might look like this:

import ihs_bindings
print(dir(ihs_bindings))

Network Config

Steps

If you are trying to connect from older wombat to older wombat, then the following extra steps are required from one of them in order to connect to the wifi of another wombat:

sudo systemctl stop hostapd
sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant

wpa_passphrase (wifi_name) (wifi_password) | sudo tee /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Where (wifi_name) is the name of the wifi that you want to connect to and (wifi_password) is the password for that wifi network.

Then, in a terminal that you will keep open, run

sudo wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &
sudo ifconfig wlan0 (new_ip_address)

Where (new_ip_address) is the ip address that you want this wombat to have now.

Example

sudo systemctl stop hostapd
sudo systemctl start wpa_supplicant

wpa_passphrase 5555-wombat d0a0b500 | sudo tee /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
sudo wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &
sudo ifconfig wlan0 192.168.125.2

This connects to the network 5555-wombat that has password d0a0b500. Then, it sets the current wombat's ip address to 192.168.125.2.