Dynamixel Motors API

Dynamixel Motors API is a simple and easy-to-use API for controling the Dynamixel motors from Compliance Robotics.

Installation

To install the Dynamixel Motors API, you can use pip:

python -m pip install git+https://github.com/SofaComplianceRobotics/DynamixelMotorsAPI.git@release-main

Usage

The Dynamixel Motors API provides the DynamixelMotors class, which can be used to control the Motors. The API provides methods for controlling the robot's motors. You can look at the motors_example.py file for a simple example of how to use the API to control the motors of the motors.

Simple example thaht sets the angles of the motors to 0 radians, waits for 1 second, and then prints the status of the robot:

import time
from dynamixelmotorsapi import DynamixelMotors

# Define your own class of motors that inherits DynamixelMotors class
class MyDynamixelMotors(DynamixelMotors):
    _length_to_rad = 1.0 / 20.0  # 1/radius of the pulley
    _rad_to_pulse = 4096 / (2 * pi)  # the resolution of the Dynamixel xm430 w210
    _pulse_center= 2048
    _max_vel = 1000  # *0.01 rev/min

    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__() # Check if all parameters have been set

robot_motors = MyDynamixelMotors()
        
if robot_motors.open(): 
    
    robot_motors.printStatus()
    initial_pos_pulse = [0] * len(DXL_IDs)
    robot_motors.angles = initial_pos_pulse
    time.sleep(1)
    robot_motors.printStatus()
    robot_motors.close()

By default, there are four motors with IDS 0, 1, 2, and 3. You can change this in the _dynamixelmotorsparameters.py at line 21:

21 |    DXL_IDs = (0, 1, 2, 3)

To change the motors parameters based on your motors, like the addresses and values, you can also change them into the file _dynamixelmotorsparameters.py if needed.

The parameters already include some Dynamixel motor series so you can easily switch by commenting and uncommenting the right line:

 4 |    #***** (Use only one definition at a time) *****
 5 |    MY_DXL = 'X_SERIES'       # X330 (5.0 V recommended), X430, X540, 2X430
 6 |    # MY_DXL = 'MX_SERIES'    # MX series with 2.0 firmware update.
 7 |    # MY_DXL = 'PRO_SERIES'   # H54, H42, M54, M42, L54, L42
 8 |    # MY_DXL = 'PRO_A_SERIES' # PRO series with (A) firmware update.
 9 |    # MY_DXL = 'P_SERIES'     # PH54, PH42, PM54
10 |    # MY_DXL = 'XL320'        # [WARNING] Operating Voltage : 7.4V

⚠️ For now, the API assumes that all the motors are the same

For Developers

The documentation is generated using pydoc-markdown. To generate the documentation, you need to install pydoc-markdown:

pipx install pydoc-markdown

Then, you can generate the documentation in a dynamixelmotors-api.md file, by using the following command at the root of the project:

pydoc-markdown