Udoobuntu 2.1.2 crashes when starting ROS indigo

I am on a project that is using ROS Indigo (some of the libraries we use are not yet ready for later versions of ROS). I have been tasked with evaluating the possibility of replacing our current hardware stack with an Udoo Neo.

I tried a simple example, with a sketch on the M4 logging messages to ROS. Arduino sketch is at
https://gist.githubusercont...

Launch file is
<launch>
<node pkg="rosserial_python" type="serial_node.py" name="serial_node">
<param name="port" value="/dev/ttyMCC"/>
<param name="baud" value="57600"/>
</node>
</launch>

As soon as I launch ROS, linux crashes. All network connections are immediately terminated, and display updates stop.

I can't find any relevant messages in any system log files.

Can anyone help me? If I can't resolve this quickly I will have to return the Neo board and switch the project to different hardware

 

There is already a topic about serial Ros and it's issues with the virtual device /dev/ttyMCC http://www.udoo.org/forum/index.php?threads/6814/

There is also a topic about Firmata that also has troubles with /dev/ttyMCC http://www.udoo.org/forum/threads/firmata-kernel-panic-accessing-dev-ttymcc.3637/

So you perhaps get it working with UART6 and Arduino Serial0
But as mentioned in the other topics that also could suffer from string issues.

Edit: serial Ros topic link added

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Our interest in using the Neo board was the hope that the virtual serial of /dev/ttyMCC would be faster than a hardware serial port. It looks like the Neo will not be suitable for our needs because of the bugs with /dev/ttyMCC

 

I can understand that. Makes me curious though what your application is that you need high speed communication. Perhaps it could wake up the Udoo team to start investing in the Neo again.

 

I decided to give the hardware serial a try, but I cannot get anything to work. To simplify testing, I then tried a simple loopback connection on the hardware for UART 6. I connected pin 33->32, 31->30, and 28->27, based on the pinout diagram at
http://www.udoo.org/docs-neo/img/gionji/DOCS_external_pinout.PNG

I enabled UART 6 in the device tree editor and rebooted. I then ran
minicom -D /dev/ttymxc5 -b 57600

I expect to see characters echoed as I type them, but I don't.

What did I miss ?

 

You have to patch udoobuntu 2.1.2 for the UART6 overflow error: http://www.udoo.org/forum/index.php?posts/25705

 

Thanks. I can now get a simple serial example to work, but ROS doesn't work. Probably the same issue being discussed in

http://www.udoo.org/forum/threads/udoo-neo-and-ros.6814/

- Bob

 

I agree. If you are good in C/C++ Arduino style then perhaps you can find and repair the issue in the Udoo Arduino board package:
https://github.com/UDOOboard/arduino-board-package

 

I will not have time to do that kind of debugging. We have to decide what hardware to use for our robot project in the next few days, so it looks like Udoo Neo is off the list.

I like some of the ideas in the Neo design, but it seems the implementation is not ready for production use.

- Bob