After receiving many requests via youtube, discord, and email, I’ve finally gone ahead, bitten the bullet, and updated all of the moteus tools to be pure python and work in a cross platform manner. Now, the only thing you need to do to install pre-compiled versions of tview and moteus tool on most* platforms is:

pip3 install moteus_gui
python3 -m moteus_gui.tview    # (or maybe just tview)
python3 -m moteus.moteus_tool  # (or maybe just moteus_tool)

I’ve personally tested these on Linux, Windows, and Raspberry Pi, and others have at least verified basic operation on Macs. Python 3.7 or greater is required.

Various users have been trying to use lower-cost Raspberry Pi CAN-FD adapters for the moteus controller for some time (like this one from Seeed), but have had problems getting communication to work. I buckled down and went to debug the problem, discovering that the root of the issue was that the linux kernel socketcan subsystem calculates very sub-optimal CAN timings for the 5Mbps bitrate that moteus uses. This results in the adapters being unable to receive frames sent at the actual 5Mbps rate, but instead only slightly slower.

Back in part 1 and part 2, I looked at problems that limited the rate at which the host computer could command the full quadruped and some of the solutions.  Now, in part 3, I’ll cover more of the solution.

More solution steps

Previously, I switched to using PREEMPT_RT, switched bridging strategies, and optimized the turnaround of the individual servo.  Now, I’ll move on to optimizing the host software.

4. Host C++ software micro-optimizations

The primary contributor in the host software to the overall update rate is the time it takes to turn around from receiving a reply from one servo, to sending the next command.  I first did some easy micro-optimizations which came up in profiling.

Back in part 1, I looked at the driving factors that limited the update rate of the full quadruped.  Now in part 2, I’ll cover the first half of the solution.

Background

To begin with, there were two major paths that I could take based around the network topology.  In one path, I would remove the active bridging capability from the junction board, and rely on the Raspberry Pi to drive all the servos directly, and in the other the active bridge would stick around.  There were a number of key disadvantages to both approaches:

The moteus brushless controller I’ve developed for the force controlled quadruped uses an RS485 based command-response communication protocol.  To complete a full control cycle, the controlling computer needs to send new commands to each servo and read the current state back from each of them.  While I designed the system to be capable of high rate all-system updates, my initial implementation took a lot of shortcuts.  The result being that for all my testing so far, the outgoing update rate has been 100Hz, but state read back from the servos has been more at like 10Hz.  Here I’ll cover my work to get that rate both symmetric, and higher.