Available software
UCANS32K146 software enablement
Introduction
There is a variety of software that can run on the UCAN boards. This includes NXP bare metal code and examples. New is the ability to use NXP MBDT (Model Based Design toolbox) The Mobile Robotics team has also enabled community supported ROS and autopilot ports for several opensource projects listed below. Typically we use NuttX/PX4 - which is the curated version of NuttX with the PX4 Autopilot tools. While the UCAN board is NOT an autopilot, with this buid, it can be a peripheral to PX4 and even offer distrubuted computing capability. The CAN communication on the UCAN board will mirror the current capabilty and state of CAN on PX4
See the software sections below in this gitbook for more details on these options!
Model Based Design Toolbox
From the NXP website: "The NXP MBDT includes an integrated Simulink®-embedded target supporting NXP MCUs for direct rapid prototyping and built-in support for software- and processor-in-the-loop (SIL and PIL) development workflows, systems and peripherals device interface blocks and drivers, a target-optimized Math and Motor Control library set (AMMCLib) for efficient execution on the target automotive MCUs and Real-Time Control Embedded Software Motor Control and Power Conversion Libraries (RTCESL) for other MCUs, and bit-accurate simulation results in the Simulink® simulation environment."
Specific information on using the UCANS32K1SIC with MBDT is given here in this article:
UCANS32K1SIC EVB Application Development using Model-Based Design Toolbox
UCANS32K146 is a build target for PX4 Autopilot. PX4 is an open source flight control software for drones and other unmanned vehicles. While UCANS32K146 is not a flight controller, it can leverage the PX4 infrastructure to provide communications and portability of peripheral drivers, leading to enablement of a distributed vehicle architecture. For example drivers for secure element SE050 would be identical on the FMU and CAN nodes. PX4 makes use of a managed and maintained version of NuttX RTOS.
In addition to PX4, UCANS32K146 is also a build target in Apache NuttX and can therefore be used without PX4 infrastructure if not needed.
UAVCAN is a lightweight protocol designed for reliable intravehicular communication in aerospace and robotic applications over CAN bus, ethernet, and other robust transports. The name UAVCAN stands for Uncomplicated Application-level Vehicular Communication And Networking. It is created to address the challenge of deterministic on-board data exchange between systems and components of next-generation intelligent vehicles: manned and unmanned aircraft, spacecraft, robots, and cars.
Bare metal example with libuavcan
CAN driver compatible with SocketCAN API, takes benefit of POSIX socket API for painless and portable CAN application development.
This software interface supports debugging UAVCAN and CAN on PC reusing an UCANS32K board reprogrammed as a debugger.
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