Instrument control package

Instrument-Control is a package for interfacing the outside world of hardware via Serial, i2c or Parallel interfaces. It is currently under development by Andrius Sutas and Stefan Mahr, you can browse the mercurial repository here and download the package here.

Compatibility

Below is a table showing package compatibility with various platforms:

	Linux	Windows (Cygwin)	Windows (native)	FreeBSD	Mac OS X
Serial	v0.1.0	v0.2.0	v0.2.1	stalled	WIP
Parallel	v0.1.0	-	-	stalled	-
i2c	v0.1.0	-	-	stalled	-
TCP	v0.2.0	v0.2.0	v0.2.0	stalled	WIP
USBTMC	v0.2.0	-	-	-	-
GPIB	v0.2.0 (*)	-	-	-	-
VXI11	v0.2.0	v0.2.0 (*)	-	-	WIP (*)

Where: (VER) - Included since VER version; (WIP) - Work In Progress and will probably be included in next release; (stalled) - Some work has been done, but it's not tested and no one is actively contributing; (-) - Not supported / Untested.

You might see errors while doing "pkg install", which mean that package is unable to support related interface on your platform (e.g. due to missing header files), therefore one should always check for the supported interfaces before trying to use them:

Code: Check for interface support

pkg load instrument-control if (exist("serial") == 3) disp("Serial: Supported") else disp("Serial: Unsupported") endif #similarly with: #exist("parallel") == 3 #exist("i2c") == 3

Requirements

Linux

For GPIB support, please install linux-gpib before installing instrument-control.

Windows (cygwin)

For VXI11 support, please install 'rpcgen', 'libtirpc-devel', and 'libtirpc1' before installing instrument-control.

MacOS

You need to build rpcgen from source [1].

Examples

Serial

Configuring interface

You might want to configure interface in a loopback mode for testing.

• If you have a Serial adapter, then simply connect pins 3 (Tx) and 2 (Rx) together (assuming your adapter is RS-232 DE9, otherwise check before doing anything). One can also insert an LED in series to view the actual bitstream.
• If you do not have a Serial adapter then create a virtual port using:

$ socat PTY,link=/dev/ttyS15 PTY,link=/dev/ttyS16

which will open two interconnected interfaces, where one (e.g. /dev/ttyS15) can be opened in Octave and second (e.g. /dev/ttyS16) using something like GNU screen:

$ screen /dev/ttyS16 <baudrate>

do not forget to change interface permissions if you want to use them with Octave/screen without root privileges.

Example: basic use

Here is a simple example to get started with the serial package. It tests the RxD and TxD lines. Make sure you have defined a loopback or connected the pins of your adapter.

Code: Serial port example

# Opens serial port ttyUSB1 with baudrate of 115200 (config defaults to 8-N-1) s1 = serial("/dev/ttyUSB1", 115200) # Flush input and output buffers srl_flush(s1); # Blocking write call, currently only accepts strings srl_write(s1, "Hello world!") # Blocking read call, returns uint8 array of exactly 12 bytes read data = srl_read(s1, 12) # Convert uint8 array to string, char(data)

Chaging some configurations is simple done by calling helper functions

Code: Serial port example: helper functions

set(s1, "baudrate", 9600) # Change baudrate set(s1, "bytesize", 5) # Change byte size (config becomes 5-N-1) set(s1, "parity", "E") # Changes parity checking (config becomes 5-E-1), # possible values [E]ven, [O]dd, [N]one. set(s1, "stopbits", 2) # Changes stop bits (config becomes 5-E-2), possible # values 1, 2.

Some properties can be set at opening time

Code: Serial port example: constructor call

s2 = serial("/dev/ttyS0", 9600, 10) # Opens serial port ttyS0 in # 9600 baudrate with 1s read timeout

Do not forget to close the ports when you are done!

fclose(s1) # Closes and releases serial interface object fclose(s2) # Closes and releases serial interface object

Example: Windows, serial port >COM9

Opening a serial port higher than COM9 requires special syntax. [2]

Code: open Windows higher serial port example

# Opens serial port COM10 s1 = serial("\\\\.\\COM10");

Parallel

Configuring interface

You will need to load following modules:

# modprobe parport
# modprobe ppdev

Now you should see devices like "/dev/parport0". In case you do not, you will need to create them manually and give sufficient privileges for your user:

# mknod /dev/parport0 c 99 0 -m 666

Example 1: LED trace

For this example you will need to connect 8 LEDs to Parallel interface Data port as shown below:

And then the actual script:

Code: trace.m

delay = 0.1; pp = parallel("/dev/parport0", 0); pp_data(pp, 0); pins = pow2([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]); while 1 for p = pins pp_data(pp, p); sleep(delay); endfor # Reverse the order pins = pins(end:-1:1); endwhile pp_close(pp);

Run it and you should see LEDs "tracing" forwards and backwards.

Example 2: LED dimming a.k.a. PWM control

Use the same schematic as in Example 1.

Code: dim.m

delay = 0.00005; pp = parallel("/dev/parport0", 0); pp_data(pp, 0); dRange = 0:100; while 1 for duty = dRange pp_data(pp, 255); for dOn = 0:duty sleep(delay); endfor pp_data(pp, 0); for dOff = 0:(100-duty) sleep(delay); endfor endfor # Reverse order dRange = dRange(end:-1:1); endwhile pp_close(pp);

Run it and you should see LEDs changing brightness from lowest to maximum.

Example 3: Logic analyzer

We can surely make something more interesting, right? Enter basic logic analyzer.

Assume you are working with [this] temperature sensor. Something is not right. You do not have one of those expensive logic analyzers, but you do have a Parallel port! You remember that someone made a package for interfacing it with GNU Octave. So you connect your probes to appropriate Data port terminals and change settings accordingly. In this example:

Probe	Port terminal
!CS	DATA0
SCK	DATA1
SO	DATA2

NB: Parallel ports usually have weak pull-ups to +5V even when in "input" mode, so do not do this if unsure. One could potentially use different terminals in Control/Status ports to get true high-impedance inputs.

And write a simple script below:

Code: logic_analyzer.m

##################################################################### # Settings ##################################################################### # Channels to capture #channels = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]; channels = [2, 1, 0]; # Channel labels #channel = {"CH0"; "CH1"; "CH2"; "CH3"; "CH4"; "CH5"; "CH6"; "CH7"}; channel = {"SO"; "SCK"; "!CS"}; # Trigger channel triggerCh = 0; # When to trigger trigger = 0; # Capture on low. For high - 1 ##################################################################### samplesTime = []; samplesValue = []; #pp_close(pp); pp = parallel("/dev/parport0", 1); printf("Waiting for trigger...\n"); fflush(stdout); data = pp_data(pp); while (bitget(data, triggerCh + 1) != trigger) oldData = data; data = pp_data(pp); endwhile printf("Capturing...\n"); fflush(stdout); startTime = time(); samplesTime(end + 1) = 0; samplesValue(end + 1) = oldData; while (bitget(data, triggerCh + 1) == trigger) data = pp_data(pp); samplesTime(end + 1) = time() - startTime; samplesValue(end + 1) = data; endwhile # Statistics printf("Average sample rate: %f kHz\n", size(samplesValue)(2) / samplesTime(end) / 1000.0); pp_close(pp); # Plotting figure; for p = 1:size(channels)(2) subplot (size(channels)(2), 1, p) plot(samplesTime, bitget(samplesValue, channels(p) + 1)) ylabel(channel{p}); axis([-0.01, samplesTime(end)+ 0.01, -1, 2], "manual"); set(gca(), 'ytick', -1:2); set(gca(), 'yticklabel', {''; '0'; '1'; ''}); endfor xlabel ("t");

If connections and settings are correct you should see something like this:

Now you can fully debug what is going with your hardware from comfort of GNU Octave.

i2c

i2c

TCP

Example: basic use

For testing you could start a tcp listener

$ socat TCP-LISTEN:8000 -

Now you can connect your listener.

Code: TCP example

# Open TCP connection to 127.0.0.1:8000 t0 = tcp("127.0.0.1",8000) # write to listener tcp_write(t0, "Hello world!") # Blocking read call, returns uint8 array of exactly 12 bytes read data = tcp_read(t0, 12) # Convert uint8 array to string, char(data)

There are several ways to set timeout of read call.

Code: set TCP timeout

# Open TCP connection to 127.0.0.1:8000 with timeout of 100 ms t0 = tcp("127.0.0.1",8000,100) # set timeout to blocking tcp_timeout(t0, -1) # the timeout can be overwritten for single read call, in this case 1000ms data = tcp_read(t0, 12, 1000) # close tcp session tcp_close(t0)

USBTMC

Configuring interface

Recent linux kernels support USBTMC out of the box. Connect your instrument and check if /dev/usbtmc* exists. Set appropriate permissions to /dev/usbtmc*

Example: basic use

Code: USBTMC example

# Open interface to USB instrument t0 = usbtmc('/dev/usbtmc0') # write to listener usbtmc_write(t0, '*IDN?') # Blocking read call, returns uint8 array data = usbtmc_read(t0, 10000) # Convert uint8 array to string, char(data) # close usbtmc session usbtmc_close(t0)

VXI11

Example: basic use

Code: VXI11 example

# Open VXI11 connection to 192.168.100.100 t0 = vxi11('192.168.100.100') # write to listener vxi11_write(t0, '*IDN?') # read from instrument, returns uint8 array data = vxi11_read(t0, 10000) # Convert uint8 array to string, char(data) # close usbtmc session vxi11_close(t0)

Limitations

For now,

• it's not possible to connect more than one instrument per IP address (e.g. VXI11-GPIB gateways)
• only instrument inst0 can be connected
• setting timeout is not implemented (defaults: 10 seconds global timeout, 2 seconds read timeout)

GPIB

Configuring interface

For using GPIB you need to install and configure the linux-gpib kernel modules and libraries.

Example: basic use

Code: GPIB example

# Open GPIB instrument with ID 7 and set timeout to 1 second (see ibtmo / NI-488.2 Function Reference) t0 = gpib(7,11) # write to listener gpib_write(t0, '*IDN?') # read from instrument, returns uint8 array data = gpib_read(t0, 10000) # Convert uint8 array to string, char(data) # close usbtmc session gpib_close(t0)

Limitations

• Setting minor, sad, send_eoi and eos_mode is not implemented yet.
• Every read or write command opens and closes a new gpib session, since the linux-gpib session pointer is only valid for single command.