motorZaberMotion

About

EPICS motor driver for zaber devices.

motorZaberMotion is intended to be used as a submodule of motor. When motorZaberMotion is built in the motor/modules directory, no manual configuration is needed.

motorZaberMotion can also be built outside of motor by copying it's EXAMPLE_RELEASE.local file to RELEASE.local and defining the paths to MOTOR and itself.

motorZaberMotion contains an example IOC that is built if CONFIG_SITE.local sets BUILD_IOCS = YES. The example IOC can be built outside of driver module.

Documentation

This module makes use of Zaber Motion Library (ZML), which requires c++17 or greater. For this reason, any epics IOC which uses this motor module must also be compiled with at least c++17.

Build

If this is your first time building an EPICS motor module, you can refer to the build instructions in SETUP.md, ignoring the npm-related instructions and instead using the explicit build steps.

ZML Device Database

Typically, ZML requires internet connectivity to identify devices: when identifying a device it will query a database service to retrieve important information such as device names, settings and conversion factors between device native units and real world units. If you would prefer that your IOC not be connected to the internet, this module exposes an ioc shell function for setting a local copy of the db (more on this in the ioc shell function section below).

Officially supported systems and architectures:

While ZML itself supports windows, linux and macOS, this module only officially supports linux and maxOS, specifically:

• linux-aarch64
• linux-arm
• linux-x86_64
• darwin-aarch64
• darwin-x86

Even though Windows is not officially supported, we include our Windows dlls in zaberMotionSupport/ZaberMotionCppSupport just in case. If you would like us to add official support for Windows, please let us know!

Darwin users must add the following to the configure/CONFIG_SITE of any IOC which uses this module (example in iocs/configure/CONFIG_SITE):

ifneq ($(filter darwin-%, $(T_A)),)
PRODDIR_RPATH_LDFLAGS_YES += $(PROD_DEPLIB_DIRS:%=-Wl,-rpath,%)
PRODDIR_LDFLAGS += $(PRODDIR_RPATH_LDFLAGS_$(LINKER_USE_RPATH))
endif

Documentation

This module provides a single implementation of both asynMotorController and asynMotorAxis, which can be used for both rotary and linear devices.

IOC Shell Functions

ZaberMotionCreateController(port, numAxes, movingPollPeriod, idlePollPeriod, zaberPort, zaberDeviceNum) Instantiates zaberController with typical asynMotorController params and two zaber device-specific params:

• zaberPort: Address or serial port name of zaber device (prefixed with tcp:// or serial://). A serial port can have multiple devices chained together.
• zaberDeviceNum: Number (1-indexed) of the controller device on a device chain. This number is stable unless the device chain is modified. It can be found using Zaber Launcher.

ZaberMotionSetDbPath(path) Allows user to specify the path to a local copy of the Zaber device database. This is only necessary if the IOC does not have access to the internet. Download link for current version of device database here.

• path: Path to device db sqlite file.

Implementation

This section is intended to clarify implementation-specific details and limitations for zaberAxis and zaberController

zaberAxis

Can control either a linear or rotary axis. The units for all motion commands are microns for linear devices and degrees for rotary. Please keep this in mind when configuring motor records.

setPosition(position): Implemented as specified. Performs unit conversion and calls set pos <native_units> as defined here in Zaber ASCII protocol

move(position, relative, minVelocity, maxVelocity, acceleration): Implemented as specified, except that minVelocity is ignored.

moveVelocity(minVelocity, maxVelocity, acceleration): Implemented as specified, except that minVelocity is ignored.

home(minVelocity, maxVelocity, acceleration): Note that this function ignores the minVelocity, maxVelocity, and acceleration parameters completely. The homing velocity of a zaber axis is defined as the lesser of limit.approach.maxspeed and maxspeed settings. If you wish to modify these settings, please do so using Zaber Launcher.

stop(acceleration): Implemented as specified.

poll(moving): The following is an overview of which status flags are set during polling, and what the status values mean with relation to our devices:

• DIRECTION: not set and has no meaning for zaber axes -- this cannot be inferred from axis state.
• DONE: equivalent to !zaber::motion::Axis::isBusy() (docs).
• PLUS_LS: 1 if FE flag is observed (docs)
• HOMELS: not set and has no meaning for zaber axes -- this cannot be inferred from axis state.
• POSITION: ie. closed-loop position enabled -- not set and has no meaning for zaber axes
• SLIP_STALL: set to true if either FS or FP flag is observed. (docs)
• HOME: not set and has no meaning for zaber axes -- this cannot be inferred from axis state.
• PRESENT: ie. encoder is present -- not set and has no meaning for zaber axes
• PROBLEM: 1 if ZML throws any type of exception, if any fault is observed, or if WL (unexpected limit trigger) flag is observed.
• MOVING: equivalent to zaber::motion::Axis::isBusy() (docs)
• GAIN_SUPPORT: ie. motor supports closed-loop position control -- not set and has no meaning for zaber axes
• COMM_ERR: 1 if ZML throws any type of exception.
• MINUS_LS: 1 if FE flag is observed (docs)
• HOMED: value returned from zaber::motion::Axis::isHomed() (docs)

zaberController

Please note that profile moves have not been implemented for zaberController.

Contact

For any comments or concerns, please contact us at [email protected]