Robot control architecture/IPC

Hi,

I chose Newbie skill level because I’m new to BeagleBoard and to Linux, but I am not new to programming.

I have BeagleBoard Black running the Debian distro it shipped with and have set up a cross-compiler on Windows 7 using Eclipse and the Linaro toolchain. This all works well, including remote debugging.

I am designing a multilayered robot control system. The idea is that lower layers are responsible for low-level tasks, e.g. basic motor control, while higher layers will do more complicated stuff.

Anyway, my idea is to run each layer either on a separate thread, or as a separate process altogether. The various layers would communicate with each other using a publish/subscribe messaging system.

I have done some research and at this point am leaning toward running each layer in a separate process and using uMundo (https://github.com/tklab-tud/umundo) to implement the messaging system.

The question I have is whether anybody has ever run uMundo on BeagleBoard Black/Debian, and if so what to look out for.

Beyond that, I am also willing to discuss the basic idea with any interested parties. I’m not convinced my current plan is the best way of going about it.

Thanks,
Bob

Check out ROS.org (Robot Operating System).

It was a little tricky to install on Debian. Here’s what I found works, with a shameless plug: http://blog.jameszapico.com/2014/06/14/debian-bbb-ros/

Sincerely,
James