SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.2

Overview

This is a minor software revision, moving from SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.1 Hotfix.1 to SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.2. This release is generally a bug and quality of life update, so users can update their diagrams on an as-needed basis.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT 4.1.0-PR.2

Changes

• Change 1: Fixed the broken "jump to" animation dial, which would output an error when used.
• Change 2: Addressed multiple warnings when viewing the GUI code to improve the overall code quality.
• Change 3: The Carleton logo in the Simulink diagram has been updated to match the GUI.
• Change 4: Fixed incorrect error messages provided by the GUI.
• Change 5: Fixed the broken animation speed slider. Animation speed is now based on an upsampled data packet, with a linear function to determine the ideal packet size based on the sample rate.
• Change 6: Added a new option under Tools for users to enter SSH login information. SSH details are no longer hardcoded in the GUI. All hardcoded instances have been updated.
• Change 7: Updated all GUI instances that required knowledge of the MATLAB version to work with any version of MATLAB.
• Change 8: Created a public-facing function allowing users to load GUI states programmatically. Sample code for this is added to Run_Initializer.m.
• Change 9: Added a checkbox for both Save Simulation Data and Save Experiment Data, allowing users to enter custom file names when saving data. By default, names are automatically generated, but unchecking the box prompts for a custom name.
• Change 10: Changed how data is saved in simulations so users can append arrays to the data bus, and all data will be saved correctly. Note: This is not yet implemented in experiments.
• Change 11: Moved the electromagnet GPIO connection to GPIO 482 and confirmed the pin can be triggered via the GUI button. Note: The platform's resistor needs modification before this works.
• Change 12: Fixed a bug where accelerations for BLACK and BLUE were not filtered the same way as RED.
• Change 13: Fixed a bug in the PWM mixer for RED, which was using the thruster positions for BLACK. This had a negligible impact since all platforms have similar thruster locations.
• Change 14: Fixed a bug where animations would hitch when a platform’s attitude crossed a singularity.

SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.1 Hotfix.1

Overview

This is a minor software revision, moving from SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.1 to SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.1 Hotfix.1. This revision is primarily being released now as Change 1 listed below has a significant impact when comparing simulation results to experiment results.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT 4.1.0-PR.1-Hotfix.1

Detailed Patch Notes

Changes

• Change 1: The clock from the PhaseSpace, which has been determined to be inconsistent, has been replaced by the internal Simulink clock. The software has been adjusted to ensure the platforms still synchronize correctly. This change has resulted in a significant improvement when comparing experiment results to simulation results.
• Change 2: A dropdown menu has been added that allows users to change the IP address, name, and password for any platform. In this way, if the IP addresses are changed, the information is not hard-coded into the GUI.
• Change 3: Alongside the menu option, all hard-coded instances of SSH connection information have been changed in the GUI back-end.
• Change 4: A menu option to see About information has been added to the File menu—this simply provides information about software licenses, authors, contributors, and the current software version.
• Change 5: Fixed an issue where the live feed would freeze up after stopping an experiment.
• Change 6: Fixed an issue where the platforms in live view would not display correctly.
• Change 7: Enabled the option to show the docking code/dock and solar panels in live view. Overlaying simulation is still in progress.
• Change 8: Added a checkbox so users can choose when you overplot.
• Change 9: Fixed issue #75.

SPOT 4.1.0 Pre-Release.1

Overview

This is a major software revision, moving from 4.0.0 to 4.1.0. This version is compatible with MATLAB 2024a and MATLAB 2024b, but was last built for 2024b. This version includes significant improvements to the Simulink diagram logic as well as general improvements and several new features for the graphical user interface. This version also includes new hardware that old versions cannot access, such as the inertial measurement units. See revision notes below for additional details. A major PWM revision is also included, but this is a Python script that runs on the platforms and is thus already available for all versions of the software.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT 4.1.0-PR.1

Detailed Patch Notes

Initializer Changes

• Change 1: Added a chunk of code at the end of the initializer to show how to run simulations without using the GUI by directly manipulating the GUI handle. This enables users to run simulations in a loop to facilitate optimization.
• Change 2: Moved the estimate thruster forces to the end of the initializer as these parameters should never be changed by the user.

GUI Changes

• Change 1: Added a refresh button next to the Simulink selection dropdown menu, which when clicked will refresh the available diagrams.
• Change 2: Added a button to remotely control the state of the electromagnet on BLACK. This is still a work in progress and not ready for Pre-Release 1.
• Change 3: Added a function which automatically checks for the presence of any continuous-time integrators or derivatives in the Simulink diagram. If found, a warning is displayed to users indicating that experiments may not match simulations.
• Change 4: Removed the thruster count threshold variable from the GUI, as it is not something most users will be editing.
• Change 5: Added LQR gains to support the new default control law. PID gains are still available if desired (though what is LQR if not a tuned PID).
• Change 6: Data class labels are now automatically generated based on the name of the input signal to the bus. As a result, the ApplyDataClass function has become obsolete and has been removed.
• Change 7: The data inspector has been reworked so that each plot can support overplotting. The data inspector figures have been split into sub-tab groups to allow for larger figures.
• Change 8: Added a toggle to show the simulation result at the same time as an experiment is running so that performance can be compared in-situ. This is still a work in progress and not ready for Pre-Release 1.
• Change 9: Added a toggle to show and hide the cone and dock from the simulation and the experiment.
• Change 10: Added a toggle to show and hide the solar panels in simulation and experiment.
• Change 11: Added a toggle to show and hide the path of the spacecraft (simulation only).
• Change 12: Updated the real-time visualization so that the experiment time is displayed. This is still a work in progress and not ready for Pre-Release 1.
• Change 13: Added a button on the direct hardware control tab to SSH into the vision computer.
• Change 14: Removed the noise options as they generally went unused and GUI space is at a premium. In the next pre-release, noise will be properly added.
• Change 15: Removed obsolete code from the GUI and moved some components to accommodate new features.
• Change 16: Starting the PhaseSpace cameras no longer automatically starts the live feed. It is preferable to leave these choices to the user.
• Change 17: Reworked the animation tool. Users can now select different parts of the spacecraft to animate, including the cone, dock, solar panels, and path traces. Thanks: Courtney.
• Change 18: Added a public-facing function to execute simulations from a script.
• Change 19: Added a new Computer Vision tab - for this release, it is disabled. But in the next release, it will contain the ability to capture a live feed from a camera on the RED platform.
• Change 20: After much testing, it appears that there is still an issue with the data rate when Simulink is running at the same rate as the PhaseSpace system. For the moment, we have reverted back to 20 Hz diagram + 10 Hz data. In Pre-Release 2, we are hoping to collect data using ROS, which may finally resolve this problem.

Simulink Changes

• Change 1: Removed a leftover termination block located in the Check Connections subsystem.
• Change 2: Added hardware blocks to support the new BMI160 IMU's which are now installed on each platform. They provide acceleration and gyroscopic measurements.
• Change 3: Reworked the data saving to use a single bus. This allows the bus inputs to be labeled and these labels can be used to automatically generate names for the data class.
• Change 4: Significantly reworked the layout of the Simulink template. Guidance and control are now their own subsystems. Control laws and path planners are programmed inside these subsystems, and flags are used in the experiment logic to indicate which control law/path planner should be used during any given segment. This also means that there is only ONE path planner and control law code block, rather than one for each segment of the experiment.
• Change 5: Made LQR the default control law, but PD is still available.
• Change 6: Implemented Artificial Potential Field as the default path planner.
• Change 7: Removed any instances of custom derivative blocks for the simulations.
• Change 8: Implemented a new control mixer for the thrusters, which uses a heuristic ranking approach to avoid having to eliminate negative PWM values.
• Change 9: Greatly reduced the number of If-Else blocks, which improves the performance of the simulations.
• Change 10: Updated the Send Data to TX2 subsystem to support the new Orin vision computer.
• Change 11: All angles are now wrapped by default. Control laws and path planning have been updated to show how attitude control can be accomplished without unwrapping. This should hopefully set the standard and avoid more confusion.
• Change 12: Added color to distinguish the different memory store blocks. RED blocks are for the chaser, BLACK blocks are for the target, BLUE blocks are for the obstacle, and GREEN blocks are for the arm.
• Change 13: Created a duty cycle zero-order hold subsystem for the three platforms in simulation. This block accepts the duty cycle at whatever rate the diagram is executed and then holds the value so that it is only run at 5 Hz. In this way, the simulated behavior should be closer to the experiment.
• Change 14: After much back and forth with researchers, we settled on a default diagram rate of 20 Hz. This provided the most consistent performances.
• Change 15: Moving average filters have been added to the PhaseSpace velocity calculations to help clean up the velocity measurement.

Bug Fixes

• Bug 1: Fixed GitHub issue #53 regarding an incorrect warning message.
• Bug 2: Updated the default SPOT GUI mat file to correct some errors and ensure compatibility with the new features.
• Bug 3: Fixed an issue where the arm was showing up in the experiment live preview but not moving around because there is no arm data feedback to the GUI.
• Bug 4: Fixed a typo in the BLACK pucks loading bar.
• Bug 5: Fixed an issue where the GUI would freeze when the PhaseSpace executable crashes, requiring the user to hit Ctrl-C in the Command Window.
• Bug 6: The incorrect labels in the save data section have been corrected.
• Bug 7: Fixed a typo in the main GUI that would mislabel the nominal forces parameter.
• Bug 8: Fixed an issue with the PWM code where the pulse timing was dependent on the duty cycle. Thus, as the duty cycle command changes, so would the timing of the next PWM pulse.

Known Issues

• Bug 1: The Artificial Potential Field code is not currently working well and is not recommended for use. But it is included as an example of how to add a path planner. Hopefully, this can be improved for the next pre-release.
• Bug 2: There is a possible sequence-break issue where if the user stops an experiment and the live data stream is running, the GUI may freeze.
• Bug 3: When comparing the IMU angular velocity to the PhaseSpace angular velocity, there appears to be a time-lag of about 0.35 seconds. It is currently unknown how much of an impact this is having or if this latency is real.
• Bug 4: The Animation Speed slider is currently broken and does not change the speed of the animations. There is also a visual issue where the tick text is cut off.

Planned Features

• Change 1: Update the connection status LED so that it is dynamic and informs users when the connection has been lost.
• Change 2: A special Kalman filter is actively being worked on to handle the time lag.
• Change 3: There is a planned internal competition to develop better velocity estimation methods. The winning algorithm will be permanently added to the software.

SPOT 4.0.0-RC.4-Hotfix.1

This release contains the updated PhaseSpace code and executable for the new LED drivers. There are no other differences between RC.4 and this hotfix.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT 4.0.0-RC.4-Hotfix.1

SPOT 4.0.0-RC.4

This marks the fourth release candidate of SPOT 4.0.0. THIS UPDATE COMMITS THE CARDINAL SIN OF BREAKING THE COMPATIBILITY OF OLDER RELEASE CANDIDATES, UPDGRADING IS MANDATORY.

Why you ask, am I breaking everything again? Because I'm reverting back to software PWM for now. That doesn't mean hardware PWM is bad, but for our application it's been more trouble then it's worth, and the RC.3 release was premature. See release notes below for more details. My apologies.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT v4.0.0-RC4

Here are the patch notes for this release:

• Fixed the ArmConfig.png image so that the body axis orientation is correct.
• Fixed a bug where if the user saves a GUI state with a diagram selected, when loading the GUI state it will load the diagram (this can lead to problems if you load the state and the diagram is missing or renamed). When loading states, the diagram dropdown should be set to default.
• Flip-flopped back to software PWM for the following reasons:

1. Hardware PWM is best for high frequency problems, where the the pulses are extremely fast. Because of the valve time on the thrusters, is does not make sense to have a high frequency PWM.
2. The minimum hardware PWM achievable on the PCA9685 is 24 Hz. This can work [see Yazan], without a great controller it wastes a lot of air.
3. This minimum PWM frequency also limits the minimum duty cycle that be commanded. At 24Hz, any duty cycle lower then 16.8% is not achievable (no air will come out). This results in a large dead zone where simple PD controllers struggle.

• Because of the above, reverted the thruster check code and clean shutdown code to work with GPIO code and not the PCA9685.
• Created a software PWM Python script that is located on all platforms and in the Resources folder. This script runs as fast as possible when executed, and receives duty cycle commands via local UDP from an active diagram.
• Created a PWM management script that manages the remote starting and stopping of the PWM Python code.
• Fixed a bug where the acceleration in X was incorrect for all platforms in simulation (no derivative was being taken).
• Tweaked the gains and the starting conditions for the default experiment to have better results and smoother behavior.
• Reverted back to the data rate being 80% of the baseRate - while buffering still seems to be resolved, doing this seems to help when there are network latency problems in the lab.

SPOT 4.0.0-RC.3

This marks the third release candidate of SPOT 4.0.0. THIS UPDATE COMMITS THE CARDINAL SIN OF BREAKING THE COMPATIBILITY OF OLDER RELEASE CANDIDATES, UPDGRADING IS MANDATORY.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT v4.0.0-RC3

Here are the patch notes for this release:

• Installed the Adafruit PCA9685 hardware PWM board on all platforms for use with the thrusters. At this time, the minimum PWM frequency is 24 Hz, and control needs to be further tuned - but it is usable. This tuning will occur in the next update which is around the corner (1-2 weeks).
• Modified the data inspector load data function so that the GUI returns to the focus of the desktop when the user either cancels or loads data.
• [Courtesy of Kirk Hovell] Found a longstanding bug that likely resulted in about 2% more air being used on average. The issues were: For RED only, the centre of mass offset due to the robot arm is no longer considered when no robot arm is present, and on all platforms the thruster decay due to pressure drop is considered when recalculating the actual achieved thrust (Fx_Sat, Fy_Sat, Tz_Sat). This was done by replacing one of the MakeH blocks with MakeHWithDecay.
• Found an error in the GUI in the FireBLUEThrusters callback. The "app.CleanShutdown" function was calling the BLACK platform instead of the BLUE one.
• Updated the CycleAllThrusters function to use I2C and the new hardware PWM.
• Updated the Cycle GPIOs On/Off button to turn off all PWM channels.
• Changed the data rate to match the base rate. Confirmed with Yazan that buffering appears to truly be resolved.
• Found an error in the GUI where if the gpio428 is turned on and improperly turned off, the user can't reset gpio428 (pucks).
• Updated the gains for the new PWM hardware.
• [Courtesy of Yazan Chihabi] Fixed a bug where setting the sub-phase #4 time to zero would cause the simulation to fail.

SPOT 4.0.0-RC.2

This marks the second release candidate of SPOT 4.0.0. Changes may still occur, but they should not break compatibility with SPOT 4.0.0-RC.1. Upgrading to this version is likely optional for most users.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT v4.0.0-RC2

Here are the patch notes for this release:

• Updated the arm simulation code to allow for different friction coefficients at each joint.
• Removed unused code from the arm simulation section.
• Fixed a small typo in a tooltip for the main GUI.
• Added in a UDP send block in the template Simulink file to send data to the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 board. See corresponding Wiki entry for details.
• Created a python script called 'receive_data.py' which can be deployed on the Jetson TX2 to receive data.
• Added some QOL touches and backend bug fixes.
• Removed the guidance_server code from the custom library because it was broken and no longer needed for communication with the Jetson TX2.

SPOT 4.0.0-RC.1

This marks the release of the latest SPOT software. Changes may still occur, but they should not break compatibility.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT v4.0.0-RC1

Here are the patch notes for this release (which are the same as the pre-release, but with some additional changes related to the manipulator):

• The Simulink diagram has been updated for compatibility with the latest NVIDIA Jetson Xavier hardware.
• The GUI has been completely revamped to support the latest hardware. There are significant changes and even experienced users should refer to the Wiki.

Note that this release contains many more changes, too many to list here. Consider this a fresh start for the software.

SPOT v4.0.0-beta.1

This marks the pre-release of the latest SPOT software. Since this is a pre-release there may still be bug fixes and changes on the way.

The software can be downloaded here: SPOT v4.0.0-beta1

Here are the patch notes for this pre-release:

• The Simulink diagram has been updated for compatibility with the latest NVIDIA Jetson Xavier hardware.
• The GUI has been completely revamped to support the latest hardware. There are significant changes and even experienced users should refer to the Wiki.

Note that this release contains many more changes, too many to list here. Consider this a fresh start for the software.

NOTE: Do not download the source code below this release, download it from the link above. Alternatively, fork the SPOT repository per the Wiki.

SPOT v3.0.8-beta.2

The latest version of SPOT has been released!

Download SPOT v3.0.8-beta.2 here: SPOT 3.0.8-beta2
Download our custom Raspbian image here: Raspbian OS

Patch Notes:

• A ground station pi is now used to collect PhaseSpace data. Data is then sent via UDP to each individual platform.
• Users are no longer required to have RED active, and can use any combination of active platforms they desire.
• Fixed issue #30.
• Fixed a logic issue where the software would attempt to run robot arm code during a simulation.
• Fixed issue #2 as a result of the ground station pi.
• Removed the judp function as it is no longer used.
• Modified the way diagrams are compiled. The diagram is now built once onto the ground station pi. It is then copied and placed on the active platforms. This means that users are no longer required to build the diagram for each platform and should save a lot of time.
• Added the Batch_Scripts folder to the Template_Files. Users should not need to interact with this folder, as it temporarily stores the batch scripts which are generated by the GUI.
• Added the Pi_Files folders to temporarily store the MATLAB_ws folder.
• Removed the serverRate variable from the initializer as it is no longer required. Data collected on the ground station pi does not appear to buffer. However, changing the rates from the default will require manual tuning. The default is 20 Hz for both the ground station diagram and the experiment template.
• Added the WhoAmI block, which is now populated by the IdentifyPlatform device driver.
• Only one UDP receive block is now required in the template, greatly reducing the complexity of the Use Hardware to Obtain States subsystem.
• Added a new button to Copy Code to Platforms. This button creates 4 batch files that uses PSCP to copy the files from the ground station pi to the other platforms.
• Added the new Refresh Software on Selected Platforms to provide a single button that erases the MATLAB_ws folder on any selected platform. Good for troubleshooting.
• Removed the troublesome warning upon starting the software.
• Added various error checks relating to checking that certain pre-compiled diagrams are present.
• Added a function to Custom_Library/Resources called ApplyDataDictionary. This function takes in the experiment packet and creates a dictionary. This same functionality is built into the GUI for simulation data. This will not work if users add new data to be logged.
• A new example of how to post-process the data is included in the template folder, under Saved Figures.