🚀 iDynTree 1.0 Released

[traversaro]

iDynTree 1.0.0 was released today and is now available for download at: https://github.com/robotology/idyntree/releases/tag/v1.0.0 .

This is the first major release of iDynTree, and from now on iDynTree will adheres to Semantic Versioning, meaning that from now on all releases of the iDynTree 1.x series will be API and ABI backward compatible.

In particular, iDynTree 2.0 will remove support for parts of iDynTree that have been deprecated for a long time such as anything that is enabled by the IDYNTREE_ENABLE_KDL CMake option, the iDynTree::DynamicsComputations class and the semantics support.

Release Highlights

Some major additions to the library with respect to iDynTree 0.11 are:

• Several attitude estimation algorithms were added in the iDynTree estimation library.
• Support for exporting iDynTree::Model as URDF files as been added, via the the iDynTree::ModelExporter class.
• Support for using OSQP as a QP solver been added in the iDynTree optimalcontrol library.
• The iDynTree::ModelLoader class has been modified to ensure that URDF models of serial robots load the joint in "normalized order", i.e. having joint closer to the fixed base come before joints that are closer to the end effector.

For more details on these and the other changes of iDynTree 1.0, check the "Detailed ChangeLog" section at the end of this release notes.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the contributors (either as code authors or code reviewers) of this version of iDynTree:

• Francisco Andrade (@fjandrad)
• Stefano Dafarra (@S-Dafarra)
• Diego Ferigo (@diegoferigo)
• Nuno Guedelha (@nunoguedelha)
• Antoine Hoarau (@ahoarau)
• Gabriele Nava (@gabrielenava)
• Prajval Kumar (@prajval10)
• Ugo Pattacini (@pattacini)
• Prashanth Ramadoss (@prashanthr05)
• Alberto Remus (@AlbertoRemusIIT)
• Angelo Rendiniello (@AngeloRendiniello)
• Francesco Romano (@francesco-romano)
• Giulio Romualdi (@GiulioRomualdi)
• Ines Sorrentino (@isorrentino)
• Yeshasvi Tirupachuri (@Yeshasvitvs)
• Silvio Traversaro (@traversaro)

iDynTree first major release is dedicated to Angelina.

Detailed ChangeLog

Added

• Added method to compute the inverse dynamics inertial parameters regressor in KinDynComputations ( Add inertial parameters regressor method to KinDynComputations idyntree#480 ).
  KinDynComputations finally reached feature parity with respect to DynamicsComputations, that will finally be removed in one of the future iDynTree feature releases.
• Added method to return the convex hull of the constraint on the projection of the center of mass ([inverse-kinematics] Added method to return the convex hull of the constraint on the projection of the center of mass idyntree#478).
• Added objects to deal with linear optimal control problems in the optimalcontrol library.
• Added OSQP interface via osqp-eigen in the optimalcontrol library.
• Fixed bugs in MultipleShooting solver in the optimalcontrol library.
• Added few lines of documentation in the optimalcontrol library.
• Added interface for ALGLIB and WORHP in the optimalcontrol library.
• Multiple shooting solvers can use hessians of costs and constraints in the optimalcontrol library.
• Taking into account also the sparsity pattern of constraints and dynamical system (both in jacobians and hessians) in the optimalcontrol library.
• Added visualization of vectors in the visualization library.
• Added a SolidShape helper library. This library is part of iDynTree, and is meant
  to contain all the algorithms that use in some form the visual and collision geometries of the model,
  and so they depend on the Assimp library to load meshes.
• Added an helper function that provides rough estimates of the inertial parameters (mass, first moments of mass,
  3d inertia matrix elements) of a robot given the total mass of the robot, and its collisions shapes. While the estimates
  provided are quite rough, they can be quite useful at least to provide an expected order of magnitude of the parameters,
  to normalize errors or as initial points of a nonlinear optimization procedure.
• Added attitude estimator interface to estimate the orientation of an IMU, given the IMU measurements ([estimation] Implement IMU-based Attitude Estimator interface with Mahony filter variant and Quaternion EKF idyntree#516).
• Added DiscreteExtendedKalmanFilterHelper base class ([estimation] Implement IMU-based Attitude Estimator interface with Mahony filter variant and Quaternion EKF idyntree#516).
• Added AttitudeMahonyFilter implementation of an explicit formulation of passive complementary filter over quaternion groups ([estimation] Implement IMU-based Attitude Estimator interface with Mahony filter variant and Quaternion EKF idyntree#516).
• Added AttitudeQuaternionEKF implementation ([estimation] Implement IMU-based Attitude Estimator interface with Mahony filter variant and Quaternion EKF idyntree#516).
• Added getWorldFrameTransform implementation in SimpleLeggedOdometry class
• Added a new version of changeFixedFrame in SimpleLeggedOdometryclass. This can be used to set a desired homogeneous transformation for the fixed frame
• Added bindings for AttitudeMahonyFilter, AttitudeQuaternionEKF, DiscreteExtendedKalmanFilterHelper ([AttitudeEstimator] [Span] adding fixes, features, bindings and tests  idyntree#522)
• Added basic tests for the Attitude Estimator classes ([AttitudeEstimator] [Span] adding fixes, features, bindings and tests  idyntree#522)
• Added DiscreteKalmanFilterHelper class for an implementation of a discrete, linear time-invariant Kalman Filter ([Estimation] Add DiscreteKalmanFilterHelper class idyntree#559)
• Added dynamic reset functionality to DiscreteExtendedKalmanFilterHelper class ([Estimation] Dynamic reset functionality for ExtendedKalmanFilter idyntree#553)
• Added high-level Matlab/Octave wrappers of the iDyntree bindings (Add matlab/octave high level wrappers idyntree#530)
• Added bindings for the class Span with the name DynamicSpan ([AttitudeEstimator] [Span] adding fixes, features, bindings and tests  idyntree#522)
• Implement RPYRightTrivializedDerivativeRateOfChange() and RPYRightTrivializedDerivativeInverseRateOfChange() into Rotation class
• Implement left Jacobian and left Jacobian inverse of SO(3) in Rotation class ([Core] Fix Transform::log() and SpatialMotionVector::exp() idyntree#562)
• Add nameIsValid attribute to iDynTree::SolidShape class.
• Add operator[] method to iDynTree::VectorDynSize (Add operator[] to iDynTree Vectors idyntree#596)
• Add operator[] method to iDynTree::VectorFixSize (Add operator[] to iDynTree Vectors idyntree#596)
• Implement getTotalMass() method for Model class
• Enable the installation of the ModelTestUtils.h file (Add ModelTestUtils.h file to the installed headers idyntree#607)
• Added iDynTree::ModelExporter class to export iDynTree::Model instances to URDF files (Add ModelExporter class and add preliminary support for exporting URDF from iDynTree::Model idyntree#554).
• Added support in the URDF parser to correctly parse the optional name parameter of visual and collision elements.
• Added iDynTree::ModelCalibrationHelper to simplify loading a model from file, update its inertial parameters and exporting again to file (Add ModelCalibrationHelper class idyntree#576).
• In yarprobotstatepublisher, add tf-prefix and jointstates-topic options for the tf prefixes and ROS topic.

• In yarprobotstatepublisher, add reduced-model optional parameter to stream only the link transformations to transform server. By default, tranformations from all the frames are streamed to the transform server.

Changed

• The changelog has been migrated to the format described in https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/ .
• If the IDYNTREE_USES_YARP option is enabled, the minimum required version of YARP is 3.3 .
• The CMake config files are now installed in ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib/cmake/iDynTree also in Windows.
• Updated iDynTree::ModelLoader class to load by default models with normalized joint ordering (Enforce meaningful initial joint ordering for chain models idyntree#491).
• In yarprobotstatepublisher the model joint positions values are initialized to zero and the joint positions values are updadted in run time if the values are available in ROS topic given through jointstates-topic parameter.
• In yarprobotstatepublisher, joint size check between model joints and joints in ROS topic given through jointstates-topic parameter have been removed.

Deprecated

• All the classes and methods that end in Semantics are deprecated, and will be removed in iDynTree 2.0, see Deprecate semantics support in core data structures idyntree#622 for more info.
• The CMake option IDYNTREE_USES_KDL and all the classes available when enabling it are deprecated, and will be removed in iDynTree 2.0 .
• In yarprobotstatepublisher, the robot option is deprecated, and replaced by name-prefix.

Fixed

• Fixed missing DOF_ACCELLERATION data in dynamic variable cache ordering
  (fix missing DOF_ACCELERATION to dynamic variable ordering idyntree#587)
• Fixed compatibility of Span with SWIG bindings compilation ([AttitudeEstimator] [Span] adding fixes, features, bindings and tests  idyntree#522)
• Fixed implementation of Transform::log() method ([Core] Fix Transform::log() and SpatialMotionVector::exp() idyntree#562)
• Fixed implementation of SpatialMotionVector::exp() method ([Core] Fix Transform::log() and SpatialMotionVector::exp() idyntree#562)

[traversaro]

A regression that caused all the project that used the CMake command find_package(iDynTree <version>) to fail was discovered today, and iDynTree 1.0.1 was released at https://github.com/robotology/idyntree/releases/tag/v1.0.1 .

Detailed ChangeLog

Fixed

• Change CMake version compatibility from SameMajorVersion to AnyNewerVersion, as API breakage between major version will be limited, and to avoid breaking the compatibility of any downstream project that request a minimum version of iDynTree as in find_package(iDynTree 0.11 REQUIRED) (Change compatibility of CMake config files from SameMajorVersion to AnyNewerVersion idyntree#629).