Biotac low level driver and ROS nodes from UPenn's biotac_stack contained in the Penn-haptics-bolt repository (https://github.com/IanTheEngineer/Penn-haptics-bolt.git).
The following instructions are from the README.md file in the Penn-haptics-bolt respository. For more details also look at the UPenn Haptics group's wiki page: http://bolt-haptics.seas.upenn.edu/index.php/Main/HomePage
In order to be able to read the Biotac data via the Cheetah SPI-USB board you first have to copy the udev rules
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Download the Cheetah SPI board drivers tp-usb-drivers-v2.10.zip from http://www.totalphase.com/products/cheetah_spi/
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Unzip the folder unzip tp-usb-drivers-v2.10.zip
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Copy the udev rules sudo cp tp-usb-drivers-v2.10/linux/99-totalphase.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
After copying the Cheetah udev rules you can download and compile the ROS package. Also make sure you have a working catkin workspace (look at the ROS tutorials).
Download the package to the catkin workspace:
cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
git clone -b <ros_distro> https://github.com/kth-ros-pkg/biotac_driver.git
Where <ros-distro> can be the groovy or hydro branch.
Otherwise you can use ROS's wstool:
cd ~/catkin_ws/src/
wstool init
wstool set biotac_driver --git https://github.com/kth-ros-pkg/biotac_driver.git -v <ros_distro>
wstool update biotac_driver
Then compile the workspace:
cd ~/catkin_ws && catkin_make
(Try for this order, but it doesn't really matter)
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Plug the biotac sensors into the Multi-BioTac board
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Plug the +5V nano-USB cable into the MBTB and your computer's USB
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Plug the Cheetah's 10 pin ribbon cable into the MBTB
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Plug the Cheetah's USB into your computer's USB port
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To start reading the sensors rosrun biotac_sensors biotac_pub
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Check to make sure your sensors are working: rostopic echo biotac_pub
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Then to log some data in JSON form: rosrun biotac_logger biotac_json_logger.py _filename:=trial_001.json
Please see the Penn Bolt Wiki for instructions on how to use the GUI
http://bolt-haptics.seas.upenn.edu/index.php/Software/MatlabGUI