A simple C++ EtherCAT master/slave stack.

Kick-start your slaves!

Thin EtherCAT stack designed to be embedded in a more complex software and with efficiency in mind.

Master stack

Current state:

Working state (can go to OP state, read/write P.I., send/receive SDO)
interface redundancy is supported
CoE: read and write SDO - blocking and async call
CoE: Emergency message
CoE: SDO Information
Bus diagnostic: can reset and get errors counters
hook to configure non compliant slaves
consecutives writes to reduce latency - up to 255 datagrams in flight
Support EtherCAT mailbox gateway (ETG.8200)
build for Linux, Windows and PikeOS

NOTE The current implementation is designed for little endian host only!

TODO:

CoE: segmented transfer - partial implementation
CoE: diagnosis message - 0x10F3
Bus diagnostic: auto discover broken wire (on top of error counters)
More profiles: FoE, EoE, AoE, SoE
Distributed clock
AF_XDP Linux socket to improve performance
Addressing groups (a.k.a. multi-PDO)

Operatings systems:

Linux

To improve latency on Linux, you have to

use Linux RT (PREMPT_RT patches),
set a real time scheduler for the program (i.e. with chrt)
disable NIC IRQ coalescing (with ethtool)
disable RT throttling
isolate ethercat task and network IRQ on a dedicated core
change network IRQ priority

PikeOS

Tested on PikeOS 5.1 for native personnality (p4ext)
You have to provide the CMake cross-toolchain file which shall define PIKEOS variable (or adapt the main CMakelists.txt to your needs)
examples are provided with a working but non-optimal process/thread configuration (examples/PikeOS/p4ext_config.c): feel free to adapt it to your needs

Windows

Absolutely NOT suitable for real time use, but it can come in handy to run tools that rely on EtherCAT communication.

To build the library, you need to install:

conan for windows (tested with 2.9.1)
gcc for Windows (tested with w64devkit 2.0.0)
npcap (tested with driver 1.80 + SDK 1.70 through conan package)

Build:

KickCAT project is handled through CMake. To build the project, call CMake to configure it and then the build tool (default on Linux is make):

Create the build folder
```
mkdir -P build
```

Install conan and the dependencies with it (you may need to adapt the profile to suit your current installation). This step is mandatory for Windows, optional otherwise

python3 -m venv kickcat_venv
source kickcat_venv/bin/activate
pip install conan
conan install conan/conanfile_linux.txt -of=build/ -pr:h conan/profile_linux_x86_64.txt -pr:b conan/profile_linux_x86_64.txt --build=missing -s build_type=Release

Configure the project (more information on https://cmake.org/cmake/help/latest/)
```
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
```
Build the project
```
make
```

Build unit tests (optional)

In order to build unit tests, you have to enable the option BUILD_UNIT_TESTS (default to ON) and to provide GTest package through CMake find_package mechanism. You also need gcovr to enable coverage report generation (COVERAGE option). Note: you can easily provide GTest via conan package manager:

Install conan and setup PATH variable (more information on https://docs.conan.io/en/latest/installation.html)
```
python3 -m venv kickcat_venv
source kickcat_venv/bin/activate
pip install gcovr
```

Install GTest in your build folder:

mkdir -p build
cd build
conan install ../conan/conanfile.txt -of=./ -pr ../conan/profile_linux_x86_64.txt -pr:b ../conan/profile_linux_x86_64.txt --build=missing -s build_type=Debug

Beware -s build_type must be consistent with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE otherwise gtest will not be found.

Configure the project (can be done on an already configured project)
```
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
```

Slave stack

Current state:

Can go from INIT to PRE-OP to SAFE-OP to OP with proper verification for each transition.
Can read and write PI
Supports ESC Lan9252 through SPI.
Supports XMC4800 ESC (with NuttX RTOS). Pass the CTT at home tests.
Tools available to flash/dump eeprom from ESC.
CoE: Object dictionnary
CoE: SDO support

TODO

Test coverage
Support more mailbox protocols (SDO Information, FoE, EoE)
Allow more than 2 PI sync manager. (multi-PDO)
DC support.
Improve error reporting through AL_STATUS and AL_STATUS_CODE (For now it only reports the errors regarding state machine transitions.)

Examples

A working example based on Nuttx RTOS and tested on arduino due + easycat Lan9252 shield is available in examples/slave/nuttx_lan9252. Another example using the XMC4800 with NuttX is available. Follow the readme in KickCAT/examples/slave/nuttx/xmc4800/README.md for insight about how to setup and build the slave stack.

Simulator

It is possible tu run a virtual network with the provided emulated ESC implementation. To start a network simulator, you can either create a virtual ethernet pair (on Linux you can use the helper script 'create_virtual_ethernet.sh') or use a real network interface by using two computer or two interfaces on the same computer. Note: the simulator has to be started first

Current state:

Load eeprom
Emulate basic sync manager behavior
Emulate basic FFMU behavior

TODO

Support interrupt (update the right register depending on the accesses on other one and the interrupt configuration)
Support redundancy behavior

Release procedure

KickCAT versions follow the rules of semantic versioning https://semver.org/

On major version update, a process of testing starts. The version is in alpha phase until API stabilization. Then we switch to release candidate (-rcx). To leave a release candidate state, it is required that:

the software is tested intensivly (at least 5 continuous days - 24*5 hours) without detecting a bug (realtime loss, crash, memory leak...).
the code coverage is sufficient (80% line and 50% branch) for master/slave stack (tools and simulation can be less).

For each tag, Conan center has to be updated (https://github.com/conan-io/conan-center-index/tree/master/recipes/kickcat).

When a version leaves the release canditate state a github release shall be generated on the corresponding tag.