Information

A python software for synchronized data management of specific force platforms sensors compatible with Phidget API and other sensor types such as IMUs.

This project is part of the author's master's thesis in industrial engineering at the University of Almería. force_platform is licensed under de GNU General Public License v3.0.

It supports currently the following sensor types:

• Phidget-Bridge compatible load sensors. (Requires Phidget dependency).
• Phidget encoders. (Requires Phidget dependency).
• Taobotics IMU sensors. (Requires MRPT dependency).
• USB webcams for video recording with opencv.

Documentation

Program documentation is available to learn how the program works and its usage.

Check it out here.

Quick setup

Note

There is a simplified and dockerized version of the software!

Check it out in this repository

Install the dependencies and clone the project into your workspace.

Warning

The project has been developed and tested in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Phidget does support Windows and MacOS, but Taobotics IMUs do not.

Phidget dependency

curl -fsSL https://www.phidgets.com/downloads/setup_linux | sudo -E bash - &&\
sudo apt-get install -y libphidget22

Phidget documentation of the Linux Installer.

MRPT dependency

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:joseluisblancoc/mrpt &&\
sudo apt install libmrpt-dev mrpt-apps &&\
sudo apt install python3-pymrpt

For more information, refer to the MRPT Documentation.

Project requirements

This project uses UV, a very powerfull tool to setup and manage python projects.

Install UV:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Clone the force_platform repository and install the project requirements.

Clone using the web URL:

git clone https://github.com/AaronPB/force_platform.git

Or clone with SSH:

git clone git@github.com:AaronPB/force_platform.git

Install the project requirements, going to the project's folder and entering:

uv venv &&\
uv pip install -r uv.lock

Warning

MRPT cannot be installed by pip. As a temporary solution, set include-system-site-packages = true in your .venv/pyvenv.cfg file.

Run the sofware

Run it using the following command:

uv run python main.py

Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by the "Programa Operativo FEDER 2014-2020" and the Andalusian "Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades", under the project UAL2020-CTS-A2100.