🚀 iCub Distro 2019.12.feat-01 Released

[pattacini]

Hi @robotology/everyone 👋

🚀 TL;DR

We're happy to announce that our latest iCub software distro 2019.12.feat-01 is now available.

To download the source code with the correct tags, check out our up-to-date Software Version Table.

⚠️ Jump to the section Prerequisites further down the page to see whether your robot is eligible for this upgrade.

📖 SW Distros Overview

We have changed our flow to deliver iCub software bundles that comprise several repositories with matching tags (e.g. yarp, icub-main, icub-basic-demos...).

📆 Time-based Distros

Starting today, these bundles will follow a time-based release cycle. As a result, bundles will be termed as YYYY.MM Distro to indicate the year and the month of the release.

Each year, we aim to yield 4 official distros, which will be synchronized with the outcome of our internal development stages. Thereby, we will have YYYY.02, YYYY.05, YYYY.08, YYYY.11 distros. Patches will be coded as YYYY.MM.nn.

These official distros will be shipped along with binaries.

✨ Feature-based Distros

Occasionally, we may distribute software containing special features that we have to release out of the standard cycle. These events will most likely occur in conjunction with the release of a new iCub robot.

The feature-based distros will be termed YYYY.MM.feat-nn and, generally, will not be accompanied by binaries.

👉 YARP

Within this release flow, YARP is handled as a dependency for all the iCub repositories in the bundle since we clearly specify the YARP tag/branch each distro will rely on. Thus, YARP will continue to follow its own release cycle.

✨ 2019.12.feat-01 Distro

Upon releasing the new iCub S/N 040 − iCubGenova07 robot, we have made available the 2019.12.feat-01 distro containing the handling of the new Robot Face Expression (RFE) unit, whose relevant activities have been tracked in the following issues/prs:

• Handle software modifications necessary to support the bno055 IMU mounted on the RFE (Robot Face Expression) board icub-main#570
• Add the MAS client usage in iKinGazeCtrl icub-main#592
• Analysis of embObjIMU rate icub-main#595
• Add the possibility to change the color of the face expression icub-main#622

⚠️ Click to see Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Importantly, in order to build and run the distro correctly, pay attention to these notes:

• Make sure that CMake 3.12 is available on your system as it is required by the latest YARP releases. You can find the instructions to install CMake 3.12 on Ubuntu 18.04 at ⚠️ CMake 3.12 is required for the development branches #364.

• Given that robots-configuration contains changes in the XML files related to the motion control of ETH robots, we have updated the version of the code responsible for managing this as well as the firmware of the embedded boards. In particular, those robots with GENERAL::MotioncontrolVersion equal to 5 have been now upgraded to version 6. If you are a user of the following robots, please proceed with a complete FW update:

  🤖 ETH robot	🏷️ Motion Control Version	Eligibility for Upgrade
  iCubErzelli01	6	✔
  iCubErzelli02	6	✔
  iCubErzelli03	6	✔
  iCubGenova02	6	✔
  iCubGenova04	6	✔
  iCubGenova07	6	✔
  iCubMoscow01	6	✔
  iCubShenzhen01	6	✔
  iTeenGenova01	6	✔
  naoPrague01	-	✔
  iiwaBoston01	-	✔

• Instead, the ETH robots listed in the table below are still configured with a quite old Motion Control Version, hence they cannot run with 2019.12.feat-01 distro. It will be certainly our responsibility to align these robots to the latest versions in order to make them eligible for the next upgrade, which is expected to come soon. Stay tuned!

  🤖 ETH robot	🏷️ Motion Control Version	Eligibility for Upgrade
  iCubDarmstadt01	4	❌
  iCubEdinburgh01	4	❌
  iCubHeidelberg01	4	❌
  iCubLausanne02	4	❌
  iCubNancy01	4	❌
  iCubNottingham01	4	❌
  iCubSheffield01	4	❌
  iCubSingapore01	4	❌
  iCubTwente01	4	❌
  iCubHamburg01	3	❌

• CAN robots are not involved in such FW change and thus their ecosystem can be upgraded smoothly 👍

[GiulioRomualdi]

@robotology/iit-dic

[pattacini]

Thanks to @dcam0050 (see robotology/icub-main#631), we have fixed a regression bug related to the compilation of a deprecated device (very old, actually).

This led us to yield the new patch 2019.12.feat-02 pointing to icub-main/v1.14.1 as per our Versioning Table.

[serena-ivaldi]

Let us know when an update for iCubNancy01 is available!