Skip to content

README.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
110 lines (78 loc) · 5.49 KB

README.md

File metadata and controls

110 lines (78 loc) · 5.49 KB
Raw

MinimalApp Python

This is the minimal example and starting point for an igus Robot Control (iRC) app in Python. It contains the app API code and some samples for the basic functions.

The features shown in this sample are available from iRC V14-001 but the API will be updated for the newest feature set. For other feature examples check the other apps in the parent directory.

Structure

  • rcapp.xml - App definition file. RobotControl uses it to integrate and start the app.
  • ui.xml - UI definition. This is optional if your app does not need user input.
  • src - App source code
    • app.py - The app's main file. It starts the app and runs some examples.
    • minimal_app - Additional app files
      • MinimalApp.py - Example app class. It contains some examples of functions to be called by the robot program and UI event handlers.
    • irc_app - Contains the API code, you should not change it.
      • AppClient.py - App client base class. Derive this for your own application, see MinimalApp.py
      • DataTypes - Data classes
      • rpc - gRPC definitions for the iRC App API

For implementing your own app app.py and MinimalApp.py are the most relevant files, adapt and rename them as you need.

For API reference check the comments in AppClient.py

Standalone apps

igus Robot Control apps can be used with both the embedded robot control and the simulation on PC. They can run either on the robot control / simulation system or on a separate system as a standalone application, communicating with the robot control. This may be useful if your app requires more system resources, e.g. for high performance image processing. For development you may want to run your app like a standalone application from your IDE.

In all situations you must install the app package to the robot control. For standalone operation remove (or comment out) the <executable ... /> line in rcapp.xml - the robot control will register the app and wait for an incoming connection. Don't forget to enter the robot control's IP (or localhost if connecting with a simulation on your PC) as the connection target in app.py.

System Setup

To run Python and develop apps you must set up a Python environment.

PC / other systems

Follow these steps to run apps in simulation or in standalone mode on PC.

We recommend installing Python via the Python Install Manager. This way you can easily install and use different Python versions. For dependency management we use poetry.

py -V:3.9.2 -m pip install poetry

For compatibility we recommend using Python version 3.9.2. If do not intend to run your app on the robot control you may use a different Python version and update grpc, in this case you will need to regenerate the grpc definitions using the following commands:

cd src
py -V:3.9.2 -m pip install grpcio-tools==1.64.1
py -V:3.9.2 -m grpc_tools.protoc -I ./irc_app/rpc/ --python_out=. --pyi_out=. --grpc_python_out=. --proto_path=. ./irc_app/rpc/robotcontrolapp.proto

To set up the poetry environment first we need the path to the correct Python binary. Run the following command and copy the path from the first output line.

py -V:3.9.2 --help

Make sure your command line is in the project directory (where this README file is). Then enable the environment using the following command (replace the path with the open you copied).

py -V:3.9.2 -m poetry env use C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\Python\pythoncore-3.9-64\python.exe

Install the app's dependencies.

py -V:3.9.2 -m poetry install

Now you can run the app locally:

py -V:3.9.2 ./src/app.py

You can run the tests using the following command.

py -V:3.9.2 -m pytest

If you changed the dependencies you may need to update the poetry.lock file by calling poetry lock or simply deleting it. Then run poetry install again.

Embedded Robot Control

All new robot controls come with Python 3.9.2 and the gRPC dependencies pre-installed. Unless you add other dependencies you should not need to do anything. If you got an older robot control that predates the introduction of the app interface you will need to install the dependencies manually.

To do this (temporarily) connect the robot control to the internet (e.g. connect it to a WiFi access point or hotspot), then run the following commands:

sudo apt update
sudo mount -o remount,rw /boot/
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install python3-pip
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install grpcio==1.64.1
python3 -m pip install grpcio-tools==1.64.1

Packaging the app

The app must be packaged before it can be installed to the robot control. To do this you can simply call the packaging script:

package.sh

See Packaging documentation for the package structure.

App definition file

The app definition file rcapp.xml contains any information that the robot control needs to integrate and start the app.

See rcapp.xml documentation.

UI definition file

The optional UI definition file defines the app UI elements for integration into the PC software.

See ui.xml documentation.