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IGH EtherCAT (Linux)

Table of Contents​

  1. EtherCAT Driver ROS2 Stack
  2. Quickstart

IGH EtherCAT (Linux)

EtherCAT Driver ROS2 Stack

EtherCAT provides applications with the capacity of reliable, real-time communication between systems and is therefore a common industrial standard. In order to simplify the development/deployment of new application using EtherCAT modules, this stack allows to combine them with ros2_control. This driver proposes a generic ways to parametrize and assemble Hardware Interfaces based on EtherCAT modules that can be defined using parameter files.

Project GitHub repository: ethercat_driver_ros2

Quickstart​

Installation​

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

  • Ubuntu 20.04\22.04\24.04 installed on your system.

Installing EtherLab​

The proposed development builds upon the IgH EtherCAT Master. Installation steps are summarized here:

  • Verify that you can run unsigned kernel modules Etherlab is a kernel module that is not signed by default. To allow the kernel to load unsigned modules, you need to disable secure boot.

Verify if secure boot is enabled (you need to install ‘’mokutil’’ first):

sudo apt-get install mokutil
mokutil --sb-state

it should print:

SecureBoot disabled

if it prints:

SecureBoot enabled

  • Then you need to disable secure boot. To do so:

    • reboot your computer and enter the BIOS settings.

    • In the security tab, disable secure boot.

    • Save and exit.

  • Install required tools:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install git autoconf libtool pkg-config make build-essential net-tools
  • Setup sources for the EtherCAT Master:
git clone https://gitlab.com/etherlab.org/ethercat.git
cd ethercat
git checkout stable-1.5
sudo rm /usr/bin/ethercat
sudo rm /etc/init.d/ethercat
./bootstrap  # to create the configure script
  • Configure, build and install libs and kernel modules:
/configure --prefix=/usr/local/etherlab  --disable-8139too --disable-eoe --enable-generic

make all modules
sudo make modules_install install
sudo depmod

Configure system:

$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/etherlab/bin/ethercat /usr/bin/
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/etherlab/etc/init.d/ethercat /etc/init.d/ethercat
$ sudo mkdir -p /etc/sysconfig
$ sudo cp /usr/local/etherlab/etc/sysconfig/ethercat /etc/sysconfig/ethercat
tip

These 4 steps may be needed every time the Linux kernel is updated. Before re-doing the 4 steps, you can try the following lighter steps:

Go into the folder where the EtherCAT project was cloned, from Step 2 (Setup sources), do:

cd ethercat
sudo rm /usr/bin/ethercat /etc/init.d/ethercat
./bootstrap

Then complete Step 3 (Configure, build and install…) entirely. From Step 4 (Configure system), run:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/etherlab/bin/ethercat /usr/bin/
sudo ln -s /usr/local/etherlab/etc/init.d/ethercat /etc/init.d/ethercat
  • Create a new udev rule:
sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/99-EtherCAT.rules

containing:

KERNEL=="EtherCAT[0-9]*", MODE="0666"
  • Configure the network adapter for EtherCAT:
sudo gedit /etc/sysconfig/ethercat

In the configuration file specify the mac address of the network card to be used and its driver

MASTER0_DEVICE="ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff"  # mac address
DEVICE_MODULES="generic"
  • Now you can start the EtherCAT master:
sudo /etc/init.d/ethercat start

it should print

Starting EtherCAT master 1.5.3  done

You can check connected slaves:

ethercat slaves

It should print information of connected slave device:

$ <id>  <alias>:<position>  <device_state>  +  <device_name>

Example:

0  0:0  PREOP  +  <device_0_name>
0  0:1  PREOP  +  <device_1_name>

Building ethercat_driver_ros2​

    1. Install ROS2 packages. The current development is based of ros2 humble. Installation steps are described in the ROS2 Humble Documentation.
    1. Source your ROS2` environment:
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
tip

The ROS2 environment needs to be sources in every used terminal. If only one distribution of ROS2 is used, it can be added to the ~/.bashrc file.

    1. Install colcon and its extensions :
sudo apt install python3-colcon-common-extensions
    1. Create a new ROS2 workspace:
mkdir ~/ros2_ws/src
    1. Pull relevant packages, install dependencies, compile, and source the workspace by using:
cd ~/ros2_ws
git clone https://github.com/ICube-Robotics/ethercat_driver_ros2.git src/ethercat_driver_ros2
rosdep install --ignore-src --from-paths . -y -r
colcon build --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release --symlink-install
source install/setup.bash