Introduction

eml_uberdriver, also known as project Enamel, is a way to simplify interfacing between motors/encoders/limit switches and ROS, without hassle and overhead.

The setup to use eml_uberdriver is fairly simple, but does have some hardware requirements. These are listed below.

Requirements

The hardware requirements for using eml_uberdriver are:

• An Arduino Due (although the firmware will work fine on other board if you change the software reset logic)
• I2C connection between ROS computer and Due

The supported hardware is as follows:

• Motors over PWM
• Two-wire encoders
• Limit switches (standard switches)

Setup

Setting up the Due for use with eml_uberdriver is very simple. Using platformio, the following command at the root of the firmware/ directory will upload the code to any connected due:

$ pio run -t upload

This should download all the required Arduino libraries and tools and flash the Due.

Hardware setup is as simple as plugging in any motors to PWM pins, encoders to any digital pins, and limit switches again to any digital pins. The four pins labeled as ADDRESS_PIN_N in firmware/src/constants.h, where N is from 1-4 are special and are used to set the I2C address of the Due. The four pins (in order) are converted from binary to decimal and added to ADDRESS_BASE to form the actual address of the Due.