ARC6

ARCS6 v.s. MCUs / DSPs

MCUs and DSPs are suitable for real-time control use cases, but they require the following development efforts.

Program changes require cross-compiling, writing, and restarting.
Debugging requires serial communication with a PC.
Lack of computing resources such as CPU and memory constrains programming

On the other hand, ARCS6 runs on Linux PC, so it has the following advantages.

The large storage capacity allows you to save experimental data.
Input/output devices such as display, mouse and keyboard are available.
File sharing and remote control are possible using the network.
Programs can be changed without cross-compiling or writing
Computer resources are abundant.

ARCS6 has an advantage over MCUs / DSPs in the proof-of-concept and prototyping phases.

ARCS6 v.s. ROS / ROS2

ROS / ROS2 are not suitable for use cases such as motion control because the control period cannot be constant. Even though ROS2 is designed with real-time in mind, it requires patches to the Linux kernel. ARCS6 has an advantage over ROS / ROS2 in that real-time control is possible without modifying the Linux kernel.

About real-time

ARCS6 achieves real-time control without modifying the Linux kernel by occupying one of the CPU cores. Modern PCs are multi-core, so there is almost no problem. Not patching the Linux kernel frees you from various side effects. Please note that the ARCS6 is a soft real-time system and may sometimes fail to adhere to the control cycle.

What you can do with ARCS6

Run/pause/resume real-time threads
Saving experimental data
Variable value display and waveform display
Rewriting variable values
Measurement of control cycle and display of statistics (e.g. standard deviation, maximum value, minimum value)
Measurement of calculation consumption time

What you can do with ARCS6

BSD 2-Clause License

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

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