Warning: Work In Progress

Note that the current software is still in development, and is not ready to be used.

kvh-yarp-devices

YARP Device Drivers for various KVH ( http://www.kvh.com/ ) sensors.

Rationale

The repo contains the following YARP devices :

• kvh17xx : YARP Driver for a KVH 17xx class of IMUS ( http://www.kvh.com/Military-and-Government/Gyros-and-Inertial-Systems-and-Compasses/Gyros-and-IMUs-and-INS/IMUs.aspx ).

Installation

Dependencies

• YARP
• serial

Step-by-step installation on Ubuntu 16.04

• Install serial on your machine. It can be compiled as a usual cmake project ( with cmake and make and make install) but it requires the catkin build system, that can be easily installed in Ubuntu 16.04 with a sudo apt install catkin.
• Install YARP on your platform, following the instructions on YARP documentation.
• Compile the code in this repository using CMake and your preferred compiler. See YARP documentation on how to compile a CMake project.
• Install the compiled devices. You can specify the installation directory using the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX CMake option.
• Make sure that the directory ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/yarp (where ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX} needs to be substituted to the directory that you choose as the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX) is in your YARP_DATA_DIRS enviromental variable (for more on the YARP_DATA_DIRS env variable, see YARP documentation on data directories ).
• Once you do that, you should be able to find the devices compiled by this repo (for example the kvh17xx) using the command yarp plugin kvh17xx, which should have an output similar to:

Yes, this is a YARP plugin
  * library:        CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/lib/yarp/kvh17xx.so
  * system version: 5
  * class name:     yarp::dev::kvh17xx
  * base class:     yarp::dev::DeviceDriver

If this is not the case, there could be some problems in finding the plugin. In that case, just move yourself to the ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/yarp directory and launch the device from there.

Device use

At the moment the driver has only have been tested with a KVH 1775 IMU. Streaming of gyroscope and accelerometer raw data seem to work fine, while magnetomenter output and rotation estimation ( #2 ) are currently not supported. Furthermore only the streaming messages have been checked to be equivalent between 1750 (the model for which the C++ driver was originally written) and the 1775. For this reason we experience some strange behaviors when query the device for configuration option (see https://github.com/robotology-playground/kvh-yarp-devices/blob/master/kvh17xx/kvh17xx.cpp#L66), however this seems not to affect the streaming of data.

Connect the KVH 1775 to the computer

We connected the KVH 1775 to a PC using the FOG/IMU Developer's Kit. Please follow precisly the instructions provided in the Quick Start Guide. In particular do not connect the power plug to the power grid if the Y-Cable Power Switch is set to the On (|) position, put switch it to Off (o) and switch it back to ON only when the the plug is connected with the power grid.

To launch the kvh17xx device with a KVH 1775 IMU, you can use the example configuration file kvh17xx/yri-kvh1775.xml for the yarprobotinterface. To do so, launch the yarpserver, then on a terminal launch the device:

yarprobotinterface --config yri-kv1775.xml

This should open a YARP port /seesaw , that you can read from the command line for example using the yarp read command:

yarp read ... /seesaw 

Alternativly, we can also launch the device using the old yarpdev command, using the example configuration file kvh17xx/yd-kvh1775.ini:

yarpdev --from yd-kv1775.ini