HOSTMOT2

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
Board I/O Pins
config modparam
encoder
pwmgen
stepgen
General Purpose I/O
Watchdog
Raw Mode
FUNCTIONS
SEE ALSO
LICENSE

NAME

hostmot2 − EMC2 HAL driver for the Mesa Electronics HostMot2 firmware.

SYNOPSIS

loadrt hostmot2 [debug_idrom=N] [debug_module_descriptors=N] [debug_pin_descriptors=N] [debug_modules=N]

debug_idrom [default: 0]

Developer/debug use only! Enable debug logging of the HostMot2 IDROM header.

debug_module_descriptors [default: 0]

Developer/debug use only! Enable debug logging of the HostMot2 Module Descriptors.

debug_pin_descriptors [default: 0]

Developer/debug use only! Enable debug logging of the HostMot2 Pin Descriptors.

debug_modules [default: 0]

Developer/debug use only! Enable debug logging of the HostMot2 Modules used.

DESCRIPTION

hostmot2 is a device driver that interfaces the Mesa HostMot2 firmware to the EMC2 HAL. This driver by itself does nothing, the boards that actually run the firmware require their own drivers before anything can happen. Currently drivers are available for the 5i20, 5i22, 5i23, 3x20, 4i65, and 4i68 (all using the hm2_pci module) and the 7i43 (using the hm2_7i43 module).

The HostMot2 firmware provides encoders, PWM generators, step/dir generators, and general purpose I/O pins (GPIOs). These things are called "Modules". The firmware is configured, at firmware compile time, to provide zero or more instances of each of these four Modules.

Board I/O Pins

The HostMot2 firmware runs on an FPGA board. The board interfaces with the computer via PCI, PC-104/Plus, or EPP, and interfaces with motion control hardware such as servos and stepper motors via I/O pins on the board.

Each I/O pin can be configured, at board-driver load time, to serve one of two purposes: either as a particular I/O pin of a particular Module instance (encoder, pwmgen, or stepgen), or as a general purpose digital I/O pin. By default all Module instances are enabled, and all the board’s pins are used by the Module instances.

The user can disable Module instances at board-driver load time, by specifying a hostmot2 config string modparam. Any pins which belong to Module instances that have been disabled automatically become GPIOs.

All IO pins have some HAL presence, whether they belong to an active module instance or are full GPIOs. GPIOs can be changed (at run-time) between inputs, normal outputs, and open drains, and have a flexible HAL interface. IO pins that belong to active Module instances are constrained by the requirements of the owning Module, and have a more limited interface in HAL. This is described in the General Purpose I/O section below.

config modparam

All the board-driver modules (hm2_pci and hm2_7i43) accept a load-time modparam of type string array, named "config". This array has one config string for each board the driver should use. Each board’s config string is passed to and parsed by the hostmot2 driver when the board-driver registers the board.

The config string can contain spaces, so it is usually a good idea to wrap the whole thing in double-quotes (the " character).

The comma character (,) separates members of the config array from each other.

For example, if your control computer has one 5i20 and one 5i23 you might load the hm2_pci driver with a HAL command (in halcmd) something like this:

loadrt hm2_pci config="firmware=hm2/5i20/SVST8_4.BIT num_encoders=3 num_pwmgens=3 num_stepgens=0,firmware=hm2/5i23/SVST8_4.BIT num_encoders=0 num_pwmgens=0 num_stepgens=2"

Note: this assumes that the hm2_pci driver detects the 5i20 first and the 5i23 second. If the detection order does not match the order of the config strings, the hostmot2 driver will refuse to load the firmware and the board-driver (hm2_pci or hm2_7i43) will fail to load. To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to predict the order in which PCI boards will be detected by the driver, but the detection order will be consistent as long as PCI boards are not moved around. Best to try loading it and see what the detection order is.

The format of each board’s config string is:

[firmware=F] [num_encoders=N] [num_pwmgens=N] [num_stepgens=N] [enable_raw]

firmware [optional]

Load the firmware specified by F into the FPGA on this board. If no "firmware=F" string is specified, the FPGA will not be programmed, and had better have a valid configuration already.

The requested firmware F is fetched by udev. udev searches for the firmware in the system’s firmware search path, usually /lib/firmware. F typically has the form "hm2/<BoardType>/file.bit"; a typical value for F might be "hm2/5i20/SVST8_4.BIT". The firmware files are distributed separately from EMC2/LinuxCNC, in the hostmot2-firmware packages available from linuxcnc.org.

num_encoders [optional, default: -1]

Only enable the first N encoders. If N is -1, all encoders are enabled. If N is 0, no encoders are enabled. If N is greater than the number of encoders available in the firmware, the board will fail to register.

num_pwmgens [optional, default: -1]

Only enable the first N pwmgens. If N is -1, all pwmgens are enabled. If N is 0, no pwmgens are enabled. If N is greater than the number of pwmgens available in the firmware, the board will fail to register.

num_stepgens [optional, default: -1]

Only enable the first N stepgens. If N is -1, all stepgens are enabled. If N is 0, no stepgens are enabled. If N is greater than the number of stepgens available in the firmware, the board will fail to register.

enable_raw [optional]

If specified, this turns on a raw access mode, whereby a user can peek and poke the firmware from HAL. See Raw Mode below.

encoder

Encoders have names like "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.encoder.<Instance>". "Instance" is a two-digit number that corresponds to the HostMot2 encoder instance number. There are ’num_encoders’ instances, starting with 00.

So, for example, the HAL pin that has the current position of the second encoder of the first 5i20 board is: hm2_5i20.0.encoder.01.position (this assumes that the firmware in that board is configured so that this HAL object is available)

Each encoder uses three or four input IO pins, depending on how the firmware was compiled. Three-pin encoders use A, B, and Index (sometimes also known as Z). Four-pin encoders use A, B, Index, and Index-mask.

The hm2 encoder representation is similar to the one described by the Canonical Device Interface (in the HAL General Reference document), and to the software encoder component. Each encoder instance has the following pins and parameters:

Pins:

(s32 out) count: Number of encoder counts since the previous reset.

(float out) position: Encoder position in position units (count / scale).

(float out) velocity: Estimated encoder velocity in position units per second.

(bit in) reset: When this pin is TRUE, the count and position pins are set to 0. (The value of the velocity pin is not affected by this.) The driver does not reset this pin to FALSE after resetting the count to 0, that is the user’s job.

(bit in/out) index-enable: When this pin is set to True, the count (and therefore also position) are reset to zero on the next Index (Phase-Z) pulse. At the same time, index-enable is reset to zero to indicate that the pulse has occurred.

(s32 out) rawcount: Total number of encoder counts since the start, not adjusted for index or reset.

Parameters:

(float r/w) scale: Converts from ’count’ units to ’position’ units.

(bit r/w) index-invert: If set to True, the rising edge of the Index input pin triggers the Index event (if index-enable is True). If set to False, the falling edge triggers.

(bit r/w) index-mask: If set to True, the Index input pin only has an effect if the Index-Mask input pin is True (or False, depending on the index-mask-invert pin below).

(bit r/w) index-mask-invert: If set to True, Index-Mask must be False for Index to have an effect. If set to False, the Index-Mask pin must be True.

(bit r/w) counter-mode: Set to False (the default) for Quadrature. Set to True for Step/Dir (in which case Step is on the A pin and Dir is on the B pin).

(bit r/w) filter: If set to True (the default), the quadrature counter needs 15 clocks to register a change on any of the three input lines (any pulse shorter than this is rejected as noise). If set to False, the quadrature counter needs only 3 clocks to register a change. The encoder sample clock runs at 33 MHz on the PCI AnyIO cards and 50 MHz on the 7i43.

(float r/w) vel-timeout: When the encoder is moving slower than one pulse for each time that the driver reads the count from the FPGA (in the hm2_read() function), the velocity is harder to estimate. The driver can wait several iterations for the next pulse to arrive, all the while reporting the upper bound of the encoder velocity, which can be accurately guessed. This parameter specifies how long to wait for the next pulse, before reporting the encoder stopped. This parameter is in seconds.

pwmgen

pwmgens have names like "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.pwmgen.<Instance>". "Instance" is a two-digit number that corresponds to the HostMot2 pwmgen instance number. There are ’num_pwmgens’ instances, starting with 00.

So, for example, the HAL pin that enables output from the fourth pwmgen of the first 7i43 board is: hm2_7i43.0.pwmgen.03.enable (this assumes that the firmware in that board is configured so that this HAL object is available)

In HM2, each pwmgen uses three output IO pins: Not-Enable, Out0, and Out1.

The function of the Out0 and Out1 IO pins varies with output-type parameter (see below).

The hm2 pwmgen representation is similar to the software pwmgen component. Each pwmgen instance has the following pins and parameters:

Pins:

(bit input) enable: If true, the pwmgen will set its Not-Enable pin false and output its pulses. If ’enable’ is false, pwmgen will set its Not-Enable pin true and not output any signals.

(float input) value: The current pwmgen command value, in arbitrary units.

Parameters:

(float rw) scale: Scaling factor to convert ’value’ from arbitrary units to duty cycle: dc = value / scale. Duty cycle has an effective range of -1.0 to +1.0 inclusive, anything outside that range gets clipped.

(s32 rw) output-type: This emulates the output_type load-time argument to the software pwmgen component. This parameter may be changed at runtime, but most of the time you probably want to set it at startup and then leave it alone. Accepted values are 1 (PWM on Out0 and Direction on Out1), 2 (Up on Out0 and Down on Out1), 3 (PDM mode, PDM on Out0 and Dir on Out1), and 4 (Direction on Out0 and PWM on Out1, "for locked antiphase").

In addition to the per-instance HAL Parameters listed above, there are a couple of HAL Parameters that affect all the pwmgen instances:

(u32 rw) pwm_frequency: This specifies the PWM frequency, in Hz, of all the pwmgen instances running in the PWM modes (modes 1 and 2). This is the frequency of the variable-duty-cycle wave. Its effective range is from 1 Hz up to 193 KHz. Note that the max frequency is determined by the ClockHigh frequency of the Anything IO board; the 5i20 and 7i43 both have a 100 MHz clock, resulting in a 193 KHz max PWM frequency. Other boards may have different clocks, resulting in different max PWM frequencies. If the user attempts to set the frequency too high, it will be clipped to the max supported frequency of the board. Frequencies below about 5 Hz are not terribly accurate, but above 5 Hz they’re pretty close.

(u32 rw) pdm_frequency: This specifies the PDM frequency, in Hz, of all the pwmgen instances running in PDM mode (mode 3). This is the "pulse slot frequency"; the frequency at which the pdm generator in the AnyIO board chooses whether to emit a pulse or a space. Each pulse (and space) in the PDM pulse train has a duration of 1/pdm_frequency seconds. For example, setting the pdm_frequency to 2e6 (2 MHz) and the duty cycle to 50% results in a 1 MHz square wave, identical to a 1 MHz PWM signal with 50% duty cycle. The effective range of this parameter is from about 1525 Hz up to just under 100 MHz. Note that the max frequency is determined by the ClockHigh frequency of the Anything IO board; the 5i20 and 7i43 both have a 100 MHz clock, resulting in a 100 Mhz max PDM frequency. Other boards may have different clocks, resulting in different max PDM frequencies. If the user attempts to set the frequency too high, it will be clipped to the max supported frequency of the board.

stepgen

stepgens have names like "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.stepgen.<Instance>". "Instance" is a two-digit number that corresponds to the HostMot2 stepgen instance number. There are ’num_stepgens’ instances, starting with 00.

So, for example, the HAL pin that has the current position feedback from the first stepgen of the second 5i22 board is: hm2_5i22.1.stepgen.00.position-fb (this assumes that the firmware in that board is configured so that this HAL object is available)

Each stepgen uses 2 IO pins. The signals on these pins depends on the step_type parameter (described below).

The stepgen representation is modeled on the stepgen software component. Each stepgen instance has the following pins and parameters:

Pins:

(float input) position-cmd: Target position of stepper motion, in arbitrary position units. This pin is only used when the stepgen is in position control mode (control-type=0).

(float input) velocity-cmd: Target velocity of stepper motion, in arbitrary position units per second. This pin is only used when the stepgen is in velocity control mode (control-type=1).

(s32 output) counts: Feedback position in counts (number of steps).

(float output) position-fb: Feedback position in arbitrary position units. This is similar to "counts/position_scale", but has finer than step resolution.

(float output) velocity-fb: Feedback velocity in arbitrary position units per second.

(bit input) enable: This pin enables the step generator instance. When True, the stepgen instance works as expected. When False, no steps are generated and velocity-fb goes immediately to 0. If the stepgen is moving when enable goes false it stops immediately, without obeying the maxaccel limit.

(bit input) control-type: Switches between position control mode (0) and velocity control mode (1). Defaults to position control (0).

Parameters:

(float r/w) position-scale: Converts from counts to position units. position = counts / position_scale

(float r/w) maxvel: Maximum speed, in position units per second. If set to 0, the driver will always use the maximum possible velocity based on the current step timings and position-scale. The max velocity will change if the step timings or position-scale changes. Defaults to 0.

(float r/w) maxaccel: Maximum acceleration, in position units per second per second. Defaults to 1.0. If set to 0, the driver will not limit its acceleration at all - this requires that the position-cmd or velocity-cmd pin is driven in a way that does not exceed the machine’s capabilities. This is probably what you want if you’re going to be using the EMC2 trajectory planner to jog or run G-code.

(u32 r/w) steplen: Duration of the step signal, in nanoseconds.

(u32 r/w) stepspace: Minimum interval between step signals, in nanoseconds.

(u32 r/w) dirsetup: Minimum duration of stable Direction signal before a step begins, in nanoseconds.

(u32 r/w) dirhold: Minimum duration of stable Direction signal after a step ends, in nanoseconds.

(u32 r/w) step_type: Output format, like the step_type modparam to the software stegen(9) component. 0 = Step/Dir, 1 = Up/Down, 2 = Quadrature. In Quadrature mode (step_type=2), the stepgen outputs one complete Gray cycle (00 -> 01 -> 11 -> 10 -> 00) for each "step" it takes.

General Purpose I/O

I/O pins on the board which are not used by a module instance are exported to HAL as "full" GPIO pins. Full GPIO pins can be configured at run-time to be inputs, outputs, or open drains, and have a HAL interface that exposes this flexibility. IO pins that are owned by an active module instance are constrained by the requirements of the owning module, and have a restricted HAL interface.

GPIOs have names like "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.gpio.<IONum>". IONum is a three-digit number. The mapping from IONum to connector and pin-on-that-connector is written to the syslog when the driver loads, and it’s documented in Mesa’s manual for the Anything I/O boards.

So, for example, the HAL pin that has the current inverted input value read from GPIO 012 of the second 7i43 board is: hm2_7i43.1.gpio.012.in-not (this assumes that the firmware in that board is configured so that this HAL object is available)

The HAL parameter that controls whether the last GPIO of the first 5i22 is an input or an output is: hm2_5i22.0.gpio.095.is_output (this assumes that the firmware in that board is configured so that this HAL object is available)

The hm2 GPIO representation is modeled after the Digital Inputs and Digital Outputs described in the Canonical Device Interface (part of the HAL General Reference document). Each GPIO can have the following HAL Pins:

(bit out) in & in_not: State (normal and inverted) of the hardware input pin. Both full GPIO pins and IO pins used as inputs by active module instances have these pins.

(bit in) out: Value to be written (possibly inverted) to the hardware output pin. Only full GPIO pins have this pin.

Each GPIO can have the following Parameters:

(bit r/w) is_output: If set to 0, the GPIO is an input. The IO pin is put in a high-impedance state (weakly pulled high), to be driven by other devices. The logic value on the IO pin is available in the "in" and "in_not" HAL pins. Writes to the "out" HAL pin have no effect. If this parameter is set to 1, the GPIO is an output; its behavior then depends on the "is_opendrain" parameter. Only full GPIO pins have this parameter.

(bit r/w) is_opendrain: This parameter only has an effect if the "is_output" parameter is true. If this parameter is false, the GPIO behaves as a normal output pin: the IO pin on the connector is driven to the value specified by the "out" HAL pin (possibly inverted), and the value of the "in" and "in_not" HAL pins is undefined. If this parameter is true, the GPIO behaves as an open-drain pin. Writing 0 to the "out" HAL pin drives the IO pin low, writing 1 to the "out" HAL pin puts the IO pin in a high-impedance state. In this high-impedance state the IO pin floats (weakly pulled high), and other devices can drive the value; the resulting value on the IO pin is available on the "in" and "in_not" pins. Only full GPIO pins and IO pins used as outputs by active module instances have this parameter.

(bit r/w) invert_output: This parameter only has an effect if the "is_output" parameter is true. If this parameter is true, the output value of the GPIO will be the inverse of the value on the "out" HAL pin. Only full GPIO pins and IO pins used as outputs by active module instances have this parameter.

Watchdog

The HostMot2 firmware may include a watchdog Module; if it does, the hostmot2 driver will use it. The HAL representation of the watchdog is named "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.watchdog".

The watchdog must be petted by EMC2 periodically or it will bite.

When the watchdog bites, all the board’s I/O pins are disconnected from their Module instances and become high-impedance inputs (pulled high), and all communication with the board stops. The state of the HostMot2 firwmare modules is not disturbed (except for the configuration of the IO Pins). Encoder instances keep counting quadrature pulses, and pwm- and step-generators keep generating signals (which are *not* relayed to the motors, because the IO Pins have become inputs).

Resetting the watchdog resumes communication and resets the I/O pins to the configuration chosen at load-time.

If the firmware includes a watchdog, the following HAL objects will be exported:

Pins:

(bit in/out) has_bit: True if the watchdog has bit, False if the watchdog has not bit. If the watchdog has bit and the has_bit bit is True, the user can reset it to False to resume operation.

Parameters:

(u32 read/write) timeout_ns: Watchdog timeout, in nanoseconds. This is initialized to 1,000,000,000 (1 second) at module load time. If more than this amount of time passes between calls to the pet_watchdog() function, the watchdog will bite.

Functions:

pet_watchdog(): Calling this function resets the watchdog timer and postpones the watchdog biting until timeout_ns nanoseconds later.

Raw Mode

If the "enable_raw" config keyword is specified, some extra debugging pins are made available in HAL. The raw mode HAL pin names begin with "hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.raw".

With Raw mode enabled, a user may peek and poke the firmware from HAL, and may dump the internal state of the hostmot2 driver to the syslog.

Pins:

(u32 in) read_address: The bottom 16 bits of this is used as the address to read from.

(u32 out) read_data: Each time the hm2_read() function is called, this pin is updated with the value at .read_address.

(u32 in) write_address: The bottom 16 bits of this is used as the address to write to.

(u32 in) write_data: This is the value to write to .write_address.

(bit in) write_strobe: Each time the hm2_write() function is called, this pin is examined. If it is True, then value in .write_data is written to the address in .write_address, and .write_strobe is set back to False.

(bit in/out) dump_state: This pin is normally False. If it gets set to True the hostmot2 driver will write its representation of the board’s internal state to the syslog, and set the pin back to False.

FUNCTIONS

hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.read

This reads the encoder counters, stepgen feedbacks, and GPIO input pins from the FPGA.

hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.write

This updates the PWM duty cycles, stepgen rates, and GPIO outputs on the FPGA. Any changes to configuration pins such as stepgen timing, GPIO inversions, etc, are also effected by this function.

hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.pet-watchdog

Pet the watchdog to keep it from biting us for a while.

hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.read_gpio

Read the GPIO input pins. Note that the effect of this function is a subset of the effect of the .read() function described above. Normally only .read() is used. The only reason to call this function is if you want to do GPIO things in a faster-than-servo thread. (This function is not available on the 7i43 due to limitations of the EPP bus.)

hm2_<BoardType>.<BoardNum>.write_gpio

Write the GPIO control registers and output pins. Note that the effect of this function is a subset of the effect of the .write() function described above. Normally only .write() is used. The only reason to call this function is if you want to do GPIO things in a faster-than-servo thread. (This function is not available on the 7i43 due to limitations of the EPP bus.)

SEE ALSO

hm2_7i43(9)
hm2_pci(9)
Mesa’s documentation for the Anything I/O boards, at <http://www.mesanet.com>

LICENSE

GPL