Phidgets drivers for ROS 2

Overview

Drivers for various Phidgets devices. This package includes:

• phidgets_api: a package which downloads and builds the Phidgets C API from phidgets.com (as an external project). It also implements a C++ wrapper for the C API, providing some base Phidget helper functions and various classes for different phidget devices.

• ROS 2 nodes exposing the functionality of specific phidgets devices:

  • phidgets_accelerometer

  • phidgets_analog_inputs

  • phidgets_digital_inputs

  • phidgets_digital_outputs

  • phidgets_gyroscope

  • phidgets_high_speed_encoder

  • phidgets_ik

  • phidgets_magnetometer

  • phidgets_motors

  • phidgets_spatial

  • phidgets_temperature

Concerning Phidgets

Phidgets are typically plugged into USB on a host computer (though there are wireless ones, they will be ignored here). In the “old-style” Phidgets, there was one USB plug per device. So if you have a temperature Phidget, and an accelerometer Phidget, they take up 2 USB plugs on the computer. These “old-style” Phidgets are still around and still available for sale, but most of the new development and sensors are in “new-style” Phidgets. In “new-style” Phidgets, a VINT hub is connected to the host computer via USB, and then the other Phidgets connect to a port on the VINT hub. Most of the “old-style” Phidget functions (temperature, acclerometer, etc.) are also available as “new-style” Phidgets, and most new functionality is only available as VINT devices.

Identifying Phidgets devices

All Phidgets that plug directly into a USB port (including the VINT hub) have a unique serial number. This serial number is printed on the back of the device, and is also printed out by the phidgets drivers when they start up. The serial number can be specified as a parameter when the driver starts up; otherwise, the default is to connect to any Phidgets that are of the correct type at startup.

Uniquely identifying a “new-style” Phidget also requires one more piece of information, which is the VINT hub port it is connected to. This also must be provided as a parameter when starting up the driver.

Note that there are “smart” and “simple” VINT hub devices. “Smart” devices have their own microcontrollers on board and use a protocol to communicate with the VINT hub.

“Simple” VINT hub devices don’t have a microcontroller. They just provide or accept a voltage from the VINT hub port (which can act as a digital input, digital output, or analog inputs).

Whether the Phidget is “smart” or “simple” can be determined by looking at the “Connection and Compatibility” portion of the webpage for the individual sensor. If the device is “smart”, then “is_hub_port_device” must be set to “false” when launching a driver; if the device is “simple”, then “is_hub_port_device” must be set to “true”.

Installing

From source

Make sure you have ROS 2 Dashing installed: https://index.ros.org/doc/ros2/Installation/Dashing/

Also make sure you have git installed:

sudo apt-get install git-core

Change directory to the source folder of your colcon workspace. If, for instance, your workspace is ~/colcon_ws, make sure there is a src/ folder within it, then execute:

cd ~/colcon_ws/src

Download the metapackage from the github repository ( may be `dashing`, ...)

git clone -b <ros_distro> https://github.com/ros-drivers/phidgets_drivers.git

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