Teknic ClearPath-SC ros2_control Hardware Interface

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Hello everyone,

I have written a hardware interface for the Teknic ClearPath-SC Servo Motors. These servo motors have a built-in motion controller and come in standard NEMA frame sizes. I have tested the implementation on the CPM-SCSK-2321S-EQNA model but it should work for all models with the “Advanced” firmware.

Here is the link to the GitHub repository: https://github.com/OpenFieldAutomation-OFA/teknic_hardware

I am not affiliated with Teknic, so this is not an “official” implementation.

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Hi,

I am using Teknic ClearPath motors with Atmel Studio which is for sure not ROS at all. I find the motors from Teknic to be quite good, but support and documentation is really bad (no email/phone communication after purchase, and github issues and discussion are on purpose removed). So you end up trying things yourself without any community behind.

For using ROS and Teknic ClearPath controller do you have any step-by-step guide?

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I agree with you that documentation is poor and that there is no community to fall back on. But in my experience the support was great. They remotely tuned my motors because the autotuner didn’t work. They even gave me information on how to tune them myself (although that really should have been documented).

I don’t have a step-by-step guide for you but I can recommend the Articulated Robotics video which explains what ros2_control is and how hardware interfaces work.

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Thank you for the reference.

What kind of controller considering the hardware are you using for step and speed signals?
I am using their ClearCore board.

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Oh ok we’re not talking about the same thing then. The ClearCore controller is used to control ClearPath-MC or SD motors (or any other stepper motor). The hardware interface that I wrote is for the ClearPath-SC motors (entirely different product).

The ClearPath-SC series can be controlled by a Linux machine with the software library. This is how I wrote the hardware interface. I honestly don’t know how to write a ros2_control hardware interface for the ClearCore controller because you cannot run Linux on it.