2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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ServoBlaster
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2013-01-24 21:04:46 +01:00
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This is software for the RaspberryPi, which provides an interface to drive
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multiple servos via the GPIO pins. You control the servo postions by sending
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commands to the driver saying what pulse width a particular servo output should
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use. The driver maintains that pulse width until you send a new command
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requesting some other width.
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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Currently is it configured to drive 8 servos. Servos typically need an active
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high pulse of somewhere between 0.5ms and 2.5ms, where the pulse width controls
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the position of the servo. The pulse should be repeated approximately every
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20ms, although pulse frequency is not critical. The pulse width is critical,
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as that translates directly to the servo position.
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The driver creates a device file, /dev/servoblaster, in to which you can send
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commands. The command format is "<servo-number>=<sero-position>", where servo
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number is a number from 0 to 7 inclusive, and servo position is the pulse width
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you want in units of 10us. So, if you want to set servo 3 to a pulse width of
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1.2ms you could do this at the shell prompt:
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echo 3=120 > /dev/servoblaster
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2012-08-19 18:18:04 +02:00
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120 is in units of 10us, so that is 1200us, or 1.2ms.
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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2013-01-24 21:04:46 +01:00
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If you set a servo width to 0 it turns off the servo output, without changing
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the current servo position.
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2012-11-11 22:02:26 +01:00
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2013-01-24 21:04:46 +01:00
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The code supports 8 servos, the control signals of which should be connected
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to P1 header pins as follows:
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Servo number GPIO number Pin in P1 header
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0 4 P1-7
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1 17 P1-11
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2 18 P1-12
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3 21 P1-13
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4 22 P1-15
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5 23 P1-16
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6 24 P1-18
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7 25 P1-22
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2012-11-11 22:02:26 +01:00
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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When the driver is first loaded the GPIO pins are configure to be outputs, and
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their pulse widths are set to 0. This is so that servos don't jump to some
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2012-11-13 00:49:39 +01:00
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arbitrary position when you load the driver. Once you know where you want your
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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servos positioned, write a value to /dev/servoblaster to enable the respective
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output. When the driver is unloaded it attempts to shut down the outputs
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cleanly, rather than cutting some pulse short and causing a servo position to
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jump.
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The driver allocates a timeslot of 2.5ms to each output (8 servos resulting in
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a cycle time of 20ms). A servo output is set high at the start of its 2.5ms
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timeslot, and set low after the appropriate delay. There is then a further
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delay to take us to the end of that timeslot before the next servo output is
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set high. This way there is only ever one servo output active at a time, which
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helps keep the code simple.
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The driver works by setting up a linked list of DMA control blocks with the
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last one linked back to the first, so once initialized the DMA controller
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cycles round continuously and the driver does not need to get involved except
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when a pulse width needs to be changed. For a given servo there are four DMA
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control blocks; the first transfers a single word to the GPIO 'set output'
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register, the second transfers some number of words to the PWM FIFO to generate
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the required pulse width time, the third transfers a single word to the GPIO
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'clear output' register, and the fourth transfers a number of words to the PWM
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FIFO to generate a delay up to the end of the 2.5ms timeslot.
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While the driver does use the PWM peripheral, it only uses it to pace the DMA
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transfers, so as to generate accurate delays. The PWM is set up such that it
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consumes one word from the FIFO every 10us, so to generate a delay of 1.2ms the
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driver sets the DMA transfer count to 480 (1200/10*4, as the FIFO is 32 bits
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wide). The PWM is set to request data as soon as there is a single word free
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in the FIFO, so there should be no burst transfers to upset the timing.
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I used Panalyzer running on one Pi to mointor the servo outputs from a second
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Pi. The pulse widths and frequencies seem very stable, even under heavy SD
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card use. This is expected, because the pulse generation is effectively
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handled in hardware and not influenced by interrupt latency or scheduling
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effects.
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The driver uses DMA channel 0, and PWM channel 1. It makes no attempt to
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protect against other code using those peripherals. It sets the relevant GPIO
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pins to be outputs when the driver is loaded, so please ensure that you are not
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driving those pins externally.
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I would of course recommend some buffering between the GPIO outputs and the
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servo controls, to protect the Pi. That said, I'm living dangerously and doing
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without :-) If you just want to experiment with a small servo you can probably
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take the 5 volts for it from the header pins on the Pi, but I find that doing
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anything non-trivial with four servos connected pulls the 5 volts down far
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enough to crash the Pi!
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2013-01-24 21:04:46 +01:00
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There are two implementions of ServoBlaster; a kernel module based one, and
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a user space daemon. The kernel module based one is the original, and is
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more mature. The user space daemon implementation is much more convenient to
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use but is less well tested and does not have all the features of the kernel
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based one. I would recommend you try the user space implementation first, as
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it is likely to be easier to get going.
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Details specific to each implementation are provided in separate sections
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below.
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The user space daemon
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---------------------
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To use this daemon grab the servod.c source and Makefile and:
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$ make servod
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$ sudo ./servod
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Number of servos: 8
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Servo cycle time: 20000us
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Pulse width units: 10us
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Maximum width value: 249 (2490us)
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$
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The prompt will return immediately, and servod is left running in the
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background. You can check it is running via the "ps ax" command.
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If you want to stop servod, the easiest way is to run:
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$ sudo killall servod
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Features not currently supported in the user space implementation:
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- does not support the timeout= option to turn off servo outputs after
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some specified delay. You must set a servo width to 0 to turn off an
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output, if you want to.
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- you cannot read /dev/servoblaster to see the current servo settings
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The kernel space implementation
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-------------------------------
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Upon reading /dev/servoblaster, the device file provides feedback as to what
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position each servo is currently set. For example, after starting the driver
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and sending the command "3=120", you would see:
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pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cat /dev/servoblaster
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0 0
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1 0
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2 0
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3 120
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4 0
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5 0
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6 0
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7 0
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pi@raspberrypi ~ $
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Please read the driver source for more details. The comments at the top of
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servoblaster.c also explain how to make your system create the
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/dev/servoblaster device node automatically when the driver is loaded.
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Alternatively running "make install" in the driver source directory will also
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create the necessary files. Further to this, running "make install_autostart"
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will create those files, plus perform the necessary changes to make
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servoblaster be automatically loaded at boot.
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2012-08-30 22:58:53 +02:00
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If you wish to compile the module yourself, the approach I took was to run
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rpi-update to get the latest kernel from github, then follow the instructions
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on the wiki (http://elinux.org/RPi_Kernel_Compilation) to compile the kernel,
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then edit the servoblaster Makefile to point at your kernel tree, then build
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servoblaster.
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2012-12-15 14:29:30 +01:00
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Some people have requested that a servo output turns off automatically if no
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new pulse width has been requested recently, and I've had two reports of
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servos overheating when driven for long periods of time. To support this
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request, ServoBlaster implements an idle timeout which can be specified at
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module load time. The value is specified in milliseconds, so if you want
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to drive your servos for 2 seconds following each new width request you would
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do this:
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sudo insmod ./servoblaster.ko idle_timeout=2000
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Typical small servos take a few 100 milliseconds to rotate from one extreme
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to the other, so for small values of idle_timeout you might find the control
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pulse is turned off before your servo has reached the required position.
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idle_timeout defaults to 0, which disables the feature.
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2012-08-30 22:58:53 +02:00
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NOTE: There is some doubt over how to configure the PWM clock at present. For
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me the clock is 600KHz, which leads to a tick lenght of 10us. However at least
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one person has reported that the pulses are out by about a factor of about 8,
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and so are repeated every 2.5ms rather than every 20ms. To work round this I
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have added two module parameters:
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tick_scale defaults to 6, which should be a divisor of 600KHz, which should
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give a tick of 10us. You set the pulse width in ticks (echo 2=27 >
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/dev/panalyzer to set 27 ticks).
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cycle_ticks is the cycle time in ticks, and defaults to 2000 to give 20ms if
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one tick is 10us. cycle_ticks should be a multiple of 8. The max pulse width
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you can specify by writing to /dev/servoblaster is (cycle_ticks/8 - 1), so for
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the default parameters it is 249, or 2.49ms.
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For example:
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sudo insmod ./servoblaster.ko tick_scale=48
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should slow it down by a factor of 8 (6*8=48).
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If you can't get quite what you want with tick_scale, you can also tweak
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cycle_ticks.
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Eventually I might get round to letting you specify how many servo control
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outputs you want, and which outputs to use, via module parameters.
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As of August 30th 2012 the servoblaster.ko module is built against a 2.6.27+
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kernel source from github.
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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2012-12-15 14:29:30 +01:00
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Related projects:
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Ville has written a simple Qt wrapper for servoblaster, which you can find
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here: https://github.com/vranki/kittinger/blob/master/servocontrol.cpp & .h
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Todd wrote a nice script to provide a simple user interface to control your
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servos, see his sbcontrol.sh script here:
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http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=15011&start=25#p187675
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2013-01-24 21:04:46 +01:00
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Richard Hirst <richardghirst@gmail.com> January 2013
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2012-08-19 18:11:33 +02:00
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