Adapters are what allows for the current MicroCART groundstation to communicate with other vehicles. The adapters act as a translator by receiving packets from groundstation and then call the packets corresponding callback function. The developer can then modify callback functions to communicate.
Adapters are what allows for the current MicroCART GroundStation BackEnd to communicate with other vehicles. The adapters act as a translator by receiving packets from groundstation and performing the appropriate operation to get the packet to its destination. There are currently two adapters, one for the crazyflie (cflib_groundstation folder) and one for the FlyPi (flypi_adapter). Both are written in python, and the FlyPi adapter will run on the Linux on the Raspberry Pi instead of the development PC.
There is one adapter created in house that allows the use of a Crazyflie. This allows the Crazyflie ground station to connect to the adapter in the same manner that the MicroCART backend does. In order to use this adapter you must first start the Crazyflie ground station, then run the Crazyflie adapter. After this process is setup make sure that the backend config is set properly for this new trackable and it can be controlled as if it were one of the custom quads.
## CRAZYFLIE ADAPTER
## CREATE NEW:
There are 3 major components that are provided for creation of a new custom adapter.
The Crazyflie adapter uses the cflib library created by Bitcraze to interface with the radio and send packets to the drone. The adapter essentially works by having the groundstation_socket class handle the TCP connection to the BackEnd. Whenever a packet is received on the socket, ground_station_socket decodes the packet, assigns it the appropriate type, and places it in the main queue for processing. The main class starts all of the threads and holds the queues. It pulls items off the input queue, and based on the message's type calls the appropriate function in cf_connection.
- adapterlib - has functions to retrieve single groundstation packets from a socket
- callbacks - has predefined functions for every type of instruction supported by groundstation
- demoadapter - example code to set up a unix socket, read from it, and call the corresponding callback function
These files rely upon groundstation header files and c files which are linked by the makefile and should be included when compiling (for example see the crazyflie adapter makefile)
To create your own adapter:
- You will need to modify the callbacks c file to interface with your vehicle.
- Modify demoadapter as needed to set up communications with your vehicle.
- Modify the trackables struct in groundstation.
## WARNINGS:
Running the executables provided use relative links that will be relative to your current working directory.
## FUNCTIONS:
This is a list of what groundstation and quad software functions are required.
- packet.c/h - DecodePacket()
- commands.h - metadata struct
- commands.c - MessageTypes, findCommand()
- callbacks.h - Typedef for command_cb
### INCLUDES LOCATIONS:
This is a list of all the required files to include to be able to use the function listed above. *(Note these paths are relative to this README)*
- ../../quad/inc/biquad_filter.h
- ../src/backend/bitwise.h
- ../../quad/inc/cb_default.h
- ../../quad/src/commands/commands.c
- ../../quad/inc/commands.h
- ../../quad/inc/communication.h
- ../../quad/inc/computation_graph.h
- ../../quad/inc/controllers.h
- ../../quad/inc/hw_iface.h
- ../../quad/inc/log_data.h
- ../src/backend/packet.c
- ../src/backend/packet.h
- ../../quad/inc/PID.h
- ../../quad/inc/timer.h
- ../../quad/inc/type_def.h
- ../../quad/src/quad_app/util.c
- ../../quad/src/quad_app/util.h
See Crazyflie [Makefile](crazyflie/Makefile) for an example
## TIPS:
using ncat (nc) you can created sockets for testing your adapter
```bash
nc -l-U <socketfilename> #creates a unix socket server for testing
nc -U <socketfilename> #creates a unix socket cient for testing
