Maplepilot / ODriveFirmware

High performance motor control

ODriveFirmware

This project is all about accuratly driving brushless motors, for cheap. The aim is to make it possible to use inexpensive brushless motors in high performance robotics projects. Like this (click for video):

This repository contains the firmware that runs on the board. The other related repositories are:

• ODriveHardware: Circuit board design. Also, the pinout from the microcontroller to the board is documented here.
• ODrive: Configuration and analysis scripts that runs on a PC.

There is also ODriveFPGA, which contains the FPGA logic and software that runs on the FPGA based ODrive. This is not currently in development, but may be resumed at some later date.

Table of contents

• Configuring parameters
• Compiling and downloading firmware
• Generating startup code
• Setting up Eclipse development environment

Configuring parameters

To correctly operate the ODrive, you need to supply some parameters. Some are mandatory, and if supplied incorrectly will cause the drive to malfunction. To get good performance you must also tune the drive.

Currently, all the parameters are at the top of the MotorControl/low_level.c file. Please note that many parameters occur twice, once for each motor. In it's current state, the motor structs contain both tuning parameters, meant to be set by the developer, and static variables, meant to be modified by the software. Unfortunatly these are mixed together right now, but cleaning this up is a high priority task.

It may be helpful to know that the entry point of each of the motor threads is void motor_thread at the bottom of MotorControl/low_level.c. This is like main for each motor, and is probably where you should start reading the code.

Mandatory parameters

You must set:

• ENCODER_CPR: Encoder Count Per Revolution (CPR). This is 4x the Pulse Per Revolution (PPR) value.
• POLE_PAIRS: This is the number of magnet poles in the rotor, divided by two. You can simply count the number of magnets in the rotor, if you can see them.
• brake_resistance: This is the resistance of the brake resistor. If you are not using it, you may set it to 0.0f.

Tuning parameters

The most important parameters are the limits:

• The current limit: .current_lim = 75.0f, //[A] // Note: consistent with 40v/v gain. The default current limit, for safety reasons, is set to 10A. This is quite weak, and good for making sure the drive is stable. Once you have tuned the drive, you should increase this to 75A to get some performance. Note that above 75A, you must change the current amplifier gains.
• The velocity limit: .vel_limit = 20000.0f, // [counts/s]. Does what it says on the tin.

The motion control gains are currently manually tuned:

• .pos_gain = 20.0f, // [(counts/s) / counts]
• .vel_gain = 15.0f / 10000.0f, // [A/(counts/s)]
• .vel_integrator_gain = 10.0f / 10000.0f, // [A/(counts/s * s)]

An upcoming feature will enable automatic tuning. Until then, here is a rough tuning procedure:

• Set the integrator gain to 0
• Make sure you have a stable system. If it is not, decrease all gains until you have one.
• Increase vel_gain by around 30% per iteration until the motor exhibits some vibration.
• Back down vel_gain to 50% of the vibrating value.
• Increase pos_gain by around 30% per iteration until you see some overshoot.
• Back down pos_gain until you do not have overshoot anymore.
• The integrator is not easily tuned, nor is it strictly required. Tune at your own discression.

Compiling and downloading firmware

Getting a programmer

Get a programmer that supports SWD (Serial Wire Debugging) and is ST-link v2 compatible. You can get them really cheap on eBay or many other places.

Installing prerequisites

To compile the program, you first need to install the prerequisite tools:

Linux:

• gcc-arm-none-eabi: GCC compilation toolchain for ARM microcontrollers.
  • Installing on Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-none-eabi
• gdb-arm-none-eabi: GNU project debugger for ARM microcontrollers.
  • Installing on Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install gdb-arm-none-eabi
• OpenOCD: Open On-Chip Debugging tools. This is what we use to flash the code onto the microcontroller.
  • Installing on Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install openocd
• No additional USB CDC driver should be required on Linux.

Windows:

Git Bash and manual tool installations

Install the following:

• Git for windows. This intalls the Git Bash, which is a unix style command line interface that we will be using.
• GNU ARM Embedded Toolchain. The cross-compiler used to compile the code. Download and install the "Windows 32-bit" version. Make sure to tick the "add to path" option.
• Make for Windows. Make is used to script the compilation process. Download and run the complete package setup program. Add the path of the binaries to your PATH environment variable. For me this was at C:\Program Files (x86)\GnuWin32\bin.
• OpenOCD. Follow the instructions at GNU ARM Eclipse - How to install the OpenOCD binaries, including the part about ST-LINK/V2 drivers. Add the path of the binaries to your PATH environment variable. For me this was at C:\Program Files\GNU ARM Eclipse\OpenOCD\0.10.0-201704182147-dev\bin.
• You may need to install the STM32 Virtual COM Port Driver, but in many cases this is not required.

After installing all of the above, open a Git Bash shell. Continue at section Building the firmware.

Cygwin

TODO

Building the firmware

• Make sure you have cloned the repository.
• Navigate your terminal (bash/cygwin) to the ODriveFirmware dir.
• Run make in the root of this repository.

Flashing the firmware

• Make sure you have configured the parameters first
• Connect SWD, SWC, and GND on connector J2 to the programmer.
• You need to power the board by only ONE of the following: VCC(3.3v), 5V, or the main power connection (the DC bus). The USB port (J1) does not power the board.
• Run make flash in the root of this repository.

Debugging the firmware

Run make gdb. This will reset and halt at program start. Now you can set breakpoints and run the program. If you know how to use gdb, you are good to go. If you prefer to debug from eclipse, see Setting up Eclipse development environment.

Generating startup code

Note: You do not need to run this step to program the board. This is only required if you wish to update the auto generated code.

This project uses the STM32CubeMX tool to generate startup code and to ease the configuration of the peripherals. We also use a tool to generate the Makefile. The steps to do this are as follows.

Installing prerequisites

• stm32cubeMX: Tool from STM to automatically generate setup routines and configure libraries, etc.
  • Available here

Generate code

• Run stm32cubeMX and load the stm32cubemx/Odrive.ioc project file.
• Press Project -> Generate code
• You may need to let it download some drivers and such.

Generate makefile

There is an excellent project called CubeMX2Makefile, originally from baoshi. This project is included as a submodule.

• Initialise and clone the submodules: git submodule init; git submodule update
• Generate makefile: python2 CubeMX2Makefile/CubeMX2Makefile.py .

Setting up Eclipse development environment

Install

• Install Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers
• Install the OpenOCD Eclipse plugin

Import project

• File -> Import -> C/C++ -> Existing Code as Makefile Project
• Browse for existing code location, find the OdriveFirmware root.
• In the Toolchain options, select Cross GCC
• Hit Finish
• Build the project (press ctrl-B)

Load the launch configuration

• File -> Import -> Run/Debug -> Launch Configurations -> Next
• Highlight (don't tick) the OdriveFirmare folder in the left column
• Tick OdriveFirmware.launch in the right column
• Hit Finish

Launch!

• Make sure the programmer is connected to the board as per Flashing the firmware.
• Press the down-arrow of the debug symbol in the toolbar, and hit Debug Configurations
  • You can also hit Run -> Debug Configurations
• Highlight the debug configuration you imported, called OdriveFirmware. If you do not see the imported launch configuration rename your project to ODriveFirmware or edit the launch configuration to match your project name by unfiltering unavailable projects:

• Hit Debug
• Eclipse should flash the board for you and the program should start halted on the first instruction in Main
• Set beakpoints, step, hit Resume, etc.
• Make some cool features! ;D