Mechanism for FreeRun Mode of an actuator required

[Andre Kempe]

Currently actuators only support setting of a new position via setPosAbs and setPosRel. However, AerotechEnsemble support a free-run-mode where the axis simply move into a given direction without specificaion of a specific coordinate.

In the current state this can only be achieved with workaround-qualitz, i.e. by creating a custom-function to enable the free-run-mode. A more reliable and profound solution is required here.

[Wolfram Lyda]

The philosophy of the plugin systems is to offer compatibility between different plugins of similar types. The basic interface is designed for this purpose.

FreeRun-Modes (for software joysticks) are an uncommon functionality of axis controller. Most axis controller offer a hardware joystick. Also the parameter to call such a function may vary with the axis number and trajectory generation methods.Hence this is no standard function. For such non-standard-function of plugins itom offers the execFuncs which can be called via python and c++.

Further more calling / starting such a free run from python will cause a leak of security due to several possible errors (e.g. stopping the python-script, runtime-errors, ...). Their is also only one python thread running at a time. Hence the stop-signal will not be processed until the current python script has returned to idle state. In combination with the leak of real time interupt-processing of windows such a soft joystick may delay randomly and sometime will not stop at the desired position.

If you want to implement such a software joystick, you should this by directly connecting the GUI-element with the hardware-plugin via signal / slot or non-blocking invokes in c++. You avoid the circuitous massaround with python. An exemplary implementation is shown within the designerPlugin MotorController (3dConnexion-Support enabled) and the hardware plugin DummyMotor.

Best regards Wolfram