SYS: ONLINELOC: WORCESTER, MANODE: GR0X-PIUTC
[ACTIVE]

robstride-motor-control

A production-grade C++ library for RobStride actuators over Linux SocketCAN — 200 Hz threaded control, per-motor fault handling and a two-bus ROS 2 node.

  • C++
  • SocketCAN
  • CAN FD
  • ROS 2
  • systemd

Problem

GR0X drives RobStride actuators split across two CAN FD buses. The robot needs a control layer that is deterministic, fault-tolerant and safe to power on unattended — not a collection of test scripts.

My role

Sole author. I designed the architecture, wrote the library and ROS 2 nodes, and integrated it on the robot’s Raspberry Pi 5.

Approach

  • 200 Hz threaded control loop talking to actuators through Linux SocketCAN.
  • Per-motor fault detection with auto-disable, so one faulted actuator cannot take down the rest of the robot.
  • Acceleration limiting and a global emergency stop.
  • A two-bus ROS 2 node with per-leg enable/disable for bring-up and testing.
  • A keyframe walking test node for exercising the legs before a learned policy is in the loop.
  • systemd auto-start, so the control stack comes up with the robot.

Results

  • Running as the motor-control layer of the GR0X humanoid.
  • Open source on GitHub.