About this repository

This repository is part of the BeagleBoom-Sampler project developed by the academic working group "Creative Technologies AG" (ctag) at the University of Applied Sciences Kiel.

What is it used for?

The tool IOSetup sets up the GPIO-Pins needed for the Buttons and Rotary encoders used by the BeagleBoom Snouts. IOManager watches the Buttons and Rotary Encoders and promotes the changes via the BeagleQueue-Lib.

Prerequirements

• You need a version of cmake >= 3.5.2
• This project needs an compiled and installed version of the BeagleQueue-Lib
  • Thus you need an installed version of PocoLib which includes the JSON namespace.
• Another Prerequirement is a working overlay. You can see a detailed installation description here.

Installation

If all requirements are met, just run

cmake .
make

Now you can find the binary files in the bin/-directory.

How to run BeagleBoom Inputs

How to run the IOSetup

To configure and initialize the GPIO pins, just run

cd bin
./IOSetup

How to run the IOHandler

To run the IOHandler you need to pass the MessageQueue Recipient/"Channel Number" as parameter to the IOHandler. This is usually the channel of the BeagleBoom menu, which we define, when we start the BeagleBoom Menu

cd bin
./IOHandler 2

Functionality

GPIO Access

BeagleBoom Inputs accesses the GPIOs via the /sys/class/gpio/ device path. To initialize and configure all these Inputs, you can use the IOSetup program. This program exports all needed GPIO pins and sets their direction as "input".

Therefore it uses the io.json (/configs/io.json) and pins.json (configs/pins.json) files:

pins.json

The pins.json file contains a collection of all Pinouts of the BeagleBone and it's internal Linux GPIO number, sorted by port. This conduces as a mapping between the Port/Pin number and the Linux GPIO number.

Here's an excerpt of the pins.json file:

{
  "port_8": {
    "pin_3": 38,
    "pin_4": 39,
    "pin_5": 34,
    "pin_6": 35,
    "pin_7": 66,
    "pin_8": 67,
    "pin_9": 69,
    ...
  },
  "port_9": {
    "pin_11": 30,
    "pin_12": 60,
    "pin_13": 31,
    "pin_14": 50,
    "pin_15": 48,
    "pin_16": 51,
    ...
  }
}

io.json

The io.json file contains the assignment of all buttons and rotary encoder to the correct port/PIN. For each entry in the file, the corresponding Port/PIN will be parsed, exported and configured on the system.

Here is an excerpt of the io.json file:

{
  "Buttons": [
    {
      "name": "BACK",
      "pin": 24,
      "header": 8
    },
    {
      "name": "A",
      "pin": 26,
      "header": 8
    }
  ],
  "RotaryEncoders": [
    {
      "name": "Z2",
      "state": {
        "header": 8,
        "pin": 18
      },
      "direction": {
        "header": 8,
        "pin": 22
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "R1",
      "state": {
        "header": 8,
        "pin": 5
      },
      "direction": {
        "header": 8,
        "pin": 7
      }
    }
  ]
}

The names of each defined input are sent as an indentifier in our event messages.

Every Rotary Encoder on the BeagleBoom PCB has two functionalites: Rotation (left and right) and button press. We do not distinguish between a button has been pressed or a rotary encoder has been pressed. Both are defined as a button. To determine a rotation, the physical rotary Encoder gives two signals to the BeagleBone, the first signal shows whether it has been rotated (state_pin == HIGH) and the second signal indicates which direction was rotated (left or right). These two signal pins are defined in the JSON file as state and direction.

GPIO Polling

The IOHandler is the main program, which generates the input Events, that are send over the BeagleQueue.

To monitor all inputs, we use a polling mechanism, that checks every 10ms all of our GPIO pins. Because we already have the buttons and rotary encoders defined in our io.json file, the program knows which pin belongs to which input and and can generate the respective events.

Message Queue Events

For sending our events, we distinguish between four different types:

EventType	Description
BUTTON_UP	A Button has been pressed/was released
BUTTON_DOWN	A Button has been pressed down
ROTARY_LEFT	A Rotary Encoder was rotated to left
ROTARY_RIGHT	A Rotary Encoder was rotated to right

On every event, the payload contains the device name as a string, like "BACK" for the back button. The device name is stored in the io.json file

Click here for more information on the BeagleQueue.

Kudos

• This project includes a modified version of @VegetableAvenger's BBBIOlib.

About this repository

This repository is part of the BeagleBoom-Sampler project developed by the academic working group "Creative Technologies AG" (ctag) at the University of Applied Sciences Kiel.

License

The content and source code of this project itself is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.