yarp-device-xsensmt

YARP Device Driver for XSens MT* devices based on the MT Software Suite.

Rationale

This repository contains the xsensmt YARP Device Driver (see YARP documentation on devices ) that expose any Xsens-based IMU that work with the Xsens MT Software Suite as a C++ class with the IGenericSensor interface. There is currently no precisly defined format to expose IMU devices in YARP (see robotology/yarp#802), and so this devices tries to match as much as possible the behaviour of the xsensmtx device, contained in the icub-main repository.

Installation

Dependencies

• YARP

Step-by-step installation

• Install YARP on your platform, following the instructions on YARP documentation.
• Compile the code in this repository using CMake and your preferred compiler. See YARP documentation on how to compile a CMake project.
• Install the project. You can specify the installation directory prefix using the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX CMake option.
• Add ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/yarp (where ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX} needs to be substituted to the directory that you choose as the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX) to your YARP_DATA_DIRS enviromental variable (for more on the YARP_DATA_DIRS env variable, see YARP documentation on data directories ).
• Once you do that, you should be able to find the xsensmt device compiled by this repo using the command yarp plugin xsensmt, which should have an output similar to:

Yes, this is a YARP plugin
  * library:        CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX/lib/yarp/xsensmt.so
  * system version: 5
  * class name:     yarp::dev::XsensMT
  * base class:     yarp::dev::DeviceDriver

If this is not the case, there could be some problems in finding the plugin. In that case, just move yourself to the ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/yarp directory and launch the device from there.

Device use

Via multipleanalogsensorsserver

To launch the xsensmt device, you can connect the Xsens IMU (for example the MTI-300) to your Linux computer, create an xml file named xsens_imu.xml containing

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE robot PUBLIC "-//YARP//DTD yarprobotinterface 3.0//EN" "http://www.yarp.it/DTD/yarprobotinterfaceV3.0.dtd">
<robot name="realsense" build=0 portprefix="/xsens_imu">

  <device type="xsensmt" name="xsens_imu">
    <param name="xsensmt_period">0.01</param>
    <param name="xsensmt_euler_period">0.005</param>
    <param name="xsensmt_gyro_period">0.005</param>
    <param name="xsensmt_acc_period">0.005</param>
    <param name="xsensmt_mag_period">0.01</param>
  </device>

  <device type="multipleanalogsensorsserver" name="xsens_imu_wrapper">
    <param name="period">5</param>
    <param name="name">/xsens_imu</param>

    <action phase="startup" level="5" type="attach">
      <paramlist name="networks">
        <elem name="imu">xsens_imu</elem>
      </paramlist>
    </action>
    <action phase="shutdown" level="5" type="detach"/>
  </device>

</robot>

Run the yarpserver, then on a terminal launch the device: yarprobotinterface --config xsens_imu.xml

Via inertial network device (Deprecated)

To launch the xsensmt device, you can connect the Xsens IMU (for example the MTI-300) to your Linux computer and the default configuration parameters should be sufficient to work fine. To do so, launch the yarpserver, then on a terminal launch the device:

yarpdev --device inertial --subdevice xsensmt

This should open a YARP port /inertial , that you can read from the command line for example using the yarp read command:

yarp read ... /inertial

Parameters

The following table contains the parameters currently supported by the device

Parameter name	Type	Units	Default Value	Required	Description	Notes
serial	string		/dev/ttyUSB0	No	File name of the serial device to which to connect.
baud	int		115200	No	Baud rate used by the serial communication."
timeout	double	seconds	0.1	No	If the device is not receiving any sensor measure for timeout seconds, it will start reporting an error.	-
sensor_name	string		sensor_imu_xsensmt	No	Name of the inertial sensor device.
frame_name	string		set same as sensor_name	No	Sensor frame in which the measurements are expressed.
xsensmt_period	double	seconds	0.01	No	Period of querying the Xsens MT* device. This parameter is used for each sensor for which the user does not specify the specific associated period.	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_acc_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the Accelerometer Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_gyro_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the Gyroscope Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_mag_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the Magnetometer Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_euler_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the Euler Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_position_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the Position Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one
xsensmt_linear_velocity_period	double	seconds	xsensmt_period	No	Period of querying the linear velocity Xsens MT* device	The frequency of publishing the information is determined by the device that attaches this one