AICA Core v5.0.0

[eeberhard]

Enduring Eiger

Version 5.0.0, nicknamed Enduring Eiger, is a major update to AICA Core with an overhauled backend system and a fresh UI for application editing.

AICA Studio

This version of AICA Studio brings a fully redesigned application editor. The iconic AICA application graph view is now supported by dynamic, context-aware panels for powerful multi-view editing: any two views of the application graph, the 3D scene, live data, state or log views can be monitored side-by-side. A mini preview of the 3D scene or application graph can also be kept on screen with convenient switching of the maximized view. Additionally, editing the application is easier than ever with context-aware settings based on the currently selected element. A new scene list tab allows for quick location and selection of elements even in large applications.

In addition to the many visual improvements, the performance and stability of the editor have been enhanced to fix various interaction issues and edge cases.

Features

• Add side panels with tabs for different views and controls
• Update context-aware settings panels for selected components and hardware
• Integrate 3D view, ROS topic, live table, and logs as tabs in the right panel
• Improve table collapse and state badge UI
• Improve editor tooltips and UI feedback
• Add a Help page with links to external resources and reference documentation for components and controllers (formerly the Docs tab)
• Move application YAML code editor into a tab in the right panel
• Add a switchable mini-view and dynamically adapt right panel tab based on mini-view state
• Unify button text to use “Delete” instead of “Remove” for removing database entries
• Rename Play button to Start, and remove Pause button
• Rework management button for saving and closing applications, making the exit application button always visible
• Add validation for URDF file upload
• Add button to reset parameters to their default value
• Implement a scene list viewer with selection and auto-focus controls
• Clearer visual indication of unconfigured components
• Enable toggling of auto-lifecycle events directly on the node
• Remove the settings gear icon from component and hardware nodes (settings are accessed simply by selecting the node)
• Add searchable mini panel for adding controllers to hardware, and enable adding controllers button from settings view
• Render array parameter settings inside a mini panel
• Remove old add components '+' button (components can now be added in the Scene tab of the right panel)
• Vertically align nodes by their header when they have the same Y coordinate on the graph
• Improve search functionality for components, controllers and documentation
• Optimize application performance
• New applications and new hardware nodes use the generic six-axis robot by default
• Display custom signal types on component tooltips as applicable
• Highlight relevant code based on the selected element
• Trigger toast warning on missing required parameters
• Switch to live data with topic selected when clicking signal edge during runtime
• Support inline editing of application name and description
• Support inline renaming for components, controllers, hardware interfaces, sequences and conditions
• Auto-fit the graph view between the left and right panel
• Rework user prompts when closing unsaved or running application
• Add background to edges to visualize edge crossings
• Drag to reconnect edges
• Improve 3D view settings

Fixes

• Block edge editing and component addition when the application is running
• Correctly determine the compatibility of signals for all combinations of encoded state
• Adjust spacing for auto event badges
• Adjust component header icon alignment and margin styles
• Fix client side error when loading multiple hardware instances
• Remove some console errors during normal operations
• Correctly handle cases in the live state table with no predicates
• Safely check joint state data before applying to 3D view
• Fix formatting of component documentation
• Use the correct display name for controllers in the Live Table
• Persist group (component/controller) expansion based on the last selected user state
• Implement missing service call trigger on condition rising edge
• Animate straight signal edges at runtime
• Truncate long application and display names
• Fix incorrect zooming on condition nodes when they are present in the graph
• Prevent nodes from being selected, deleted or updated when not interactive

API

This release is a major update to the core API server with a full rewrite of database and RESTful server in Golang.

A summary of breaking changes is given below. This information only affects users who interact with the API directly through HTTP clients or custom code. Please refer to the full API reference documentation for more information.

Breaking changes

• Move all API endpoints under the /v3 namespace
• Revise all endpoints to be more compliant to HTTP conventions in the methods they use and the status codes they return
• Move /version to /v3/version and require status scope to access
• Access user data (applications and hardware) by UUID instead of by name
• Remove /v2/examples endpoints for built-in hardware and return all hardware under /v3/hardware, with a flag in the response body to indicate
• Return component and controller descriptions under a unified /v3/descriptions/extensions endpoint using the new extensions schema
• When listing user data (applications and hardware), return light entries instead of full entries (omitting the full YAML or URDF content, respectively)
• Move all resources that manage runtime states of applications under the /v3/engine namespace
• Replace most endpoints with path parameters (such as for component or interface names) with fixed paths using parameters in the request body
• Refactor behavior of cloud authentication and cloud application storage
• Remove the feature-specific API endpoints for the legacy Smart Assembly app

Features

• Support the new extensions 1-0-0 schema
• Provide OpenAPI spec on the /schema.yaml endpoint
• Add support for sensor_msgs over the ROS API
• Directly parse EncodedState messages into JSON according to the protobuf schema when transported over the ROS API

Event Engine

This version of the Event Engine enables asynchronous control rates, extends the Event Engine service interface with additional metadata to get, set and unset applications, and fixes some minor issues around log levels, headers and reference frames.

Changes

• Set header stamp for joint positions
• Add service to unset applications
• Support metadata when setting applications
• Set log level of controller before init
• Set update rate on controllers and manager
• Prevent overriding reference frame names that already exist in a URDF

Core Collections

The core library of components, controllers and example hardware has been improved with a new core filter component, a new GPIO Broadcaster controller as well as several important fixes around force-torque sensor data and blending in the JTC controller, and an updated mock interface and generic robot example that supports gpios, sensors, and simplistic dynamics to simulate the state of the robot.

Components

• Add a new component CartesianLowPassFilter that can be used to filter a Cartesian signal.

Controllers

• Fix edge-case of wrench transformation and reference frame check for the sensor frame in robot state broadcaster
• Fix blending activation starting from 2 points in the Joint Trajectory Controller
• Add GPIO broadcaster controller
• Rename descriptions for consistency

Hardware

• Improve the generic six-axis robot
• Remove the benchmarking example hardware from core
• Rework the Mock Interface driver with GPIOs, sensors and simplistic dynamics
• Rework descriptions