Motor Control Software for Soft Exoskeleton

Motor control for the CubeMars AK60-6 actuator module used in Aries soft-exosuit development.

Current Status

• Primary interface: CAN on Jetson Orin Nano via Linux SocketCAN
• Current maintained CAN path: MIT-only control
• Supported high-level helpers: set_position(), set_velocity(), set_current(), stop()
• UART support remains available for compatibility and earlier bring-up workflows

This repository is the motor-module codebase, not a full exosuit application. Its current focus is a modular actuator-control layer plus the bench-side scripts used to validate it.

Key Features

• Transport-independent motor abstraction through BaseMotor
• Maintained SocketCAN backend for the CubeMars AK60-6
• MIT-only CAN control path with one consistent command model
• Background command refresh, feedback decoding, cached state handling, and staged recovery
• Bench-validation scripts for MIT mode, position stepping, velocity verification, and plotting

Installation

For normal development, testing, and analysis:

uv sync --all-groups
source .venv/bin/activate

If you only want to install the package itself:

uv pip install -e .

CAN Setup on Jetson Orin Nano

Recommended: systemd startup

Install the tracked can0.service once so can0 comes up automatically on boot:

sudo cp can0.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable can0.service
sudo systemctl start can0.service

This brings can0 up at 1 Mbps with bus-off auto-recovery.

Useful checks:

systemctl status can0.service
sudo systemctl restart can0.service
ip -details link show can0

Manual setup

If you do not want to use the service, configure the interface manually:

sudo ./setup_can.sh

Important Hardware Note

If the R-Link / UART cable is connected to the motor, CAN commands may be silently ignored even though feedback frames are still visible on the bus. For CAN operation, disconnect the UART cable and then reset the CAN interface.

Recommended Workflow

1. Confirm MIT/CAN communication

sudo ./setup_can.sh
.venv/bin/python scripts/mit_mode_test.py --motor-id 0x03

2. Validate sustained velocity behavior

.venv/bin/python scripts/verify_set_velocity.py --motor-id 0x03 --velocity-erpm 3000

3. Run repeated MIT position stepping

.venv/bin/python scripts/mit_position_steps.py --motor-id 0x03 --duration 180 --angle-deg 50 --velocity-deg-s 100

4. Generate comparison plots from recorded CSV files

.venv/bin/python scripts/plot_graph.py velocity --data-root CSV --out-dir CSV/plots
.venv/bin/python scripts/plot_graph.py position --data-root CSV --out-dir CSV/plots

Python API

The default convenience alias is the CAN motor class:

from motor_python import Motor

with Motor(motor_can_id=0x03) as motor:
    motor.enable_mit_mode()
    motor.set_velocity(3000)
    motor.set_position(90.0)
    motor.stop()

For direct access to the specific implementations:

from motor_python.cube_mars_motor_can import CubeMarsAK606v3CAN
from motor_python.cube_mars_motor import CubeMarsAK606v3

Main CAN lifecycle methods

Main CAN control methods

Useful Bench Scripts

These are the maintained scripts that matter most for the current implementation:

Additional exploratory and legacy scripts remain under scripts/, but they are not the primary maintained validation path.

Testing

Run unit tests:

make test

Run CAN hardware tests:

make test-hardware-can

Run all hardware tests:

make test-hardware-all

Project Structure

can0.service                    systemd unit for automatic can0 startup
setup_can.sh                    manual CAN setup and reset helper
src/motor_python/               package source
scripts/                        bench and validation scripts
tests/                          unit and hardware-oriented tests
data/csv_logs/.gitkeep          placeholder for locally generated CSV logs
Test Rig CAD files/             CAD assets for the bench rig

Notes on Scope

• The current CAN implementation is MIT-only.
• Legacy servo transport modes are intentionally not part of the maintained CAN path.
• The repository includes bench-validation tooling, but not thesis-only notes, temporary files, or local analysis artifacts.

Run the Package Entry Point

uv run python -m motor_python