ESP32 uMP cluster

All ESP32 boards running MicroPython.
Target audience: MicroPython users with an ESP32 board.
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OutoftheBOTS_
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ESP32 uMP cluster

Post by OutoftheBOTS_ » Wed Apr 18, 2018 7:31 am

This came up on my news feed today.

Someone has built a cluster using ESP32 boards and MicroPython https://github.com/Wei1234c/Broccoli/bl ... adme_en.md

I am wondering fi this can be used for my Quadraped robot, where each node computes the maths for each leg. With 4 legs and 2 cores on each ESP32 I am wondering if this could be done quickly and easily on 2 ESP32 chips

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dhylands
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Re: ESP32 uMP cluster

Post by dhylands » Wed Apr 18, 2018 2:41 pm

My brother has a quad walker that is controlled using MicroPython on a custom board which is essentially a pyboard: viewtopic.php?t=1189#p7179

A single ESP32 should be more than enough CPU to manage all 4 legs.

OutoftheBOTS_
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Re: ESP32 uMP cluster

Post by OutoftheBOTS_ » Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:29 pm

@dhylands

I have robot working in Micro python but would like it to be able implement more complex movements. This was a very early attempt at the the simple trot gait with RPi see at 40sec https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVrKJaXJN3I

Nice robot that your brother built.

I just followed the link to his code and had a very quick look through the code. As far as I can tell with the very quick look I had at his code he is using 4 steps in a cycle for normal trot and 6 steps for a smooth trot. This means he only calculates the foot position and servos angles 4 or 6 times per step cycle so very light. The more the steps per cycle the smoother the gait becomes but the more calculations it requires. Also if you want speed control by putting a small pause between each step in the cycle then you have to use lots of small steps or the robot will become super jerky where it does a big movement fast over a big step then pauses still then repeats.

I am also wanting to implement many more complex movement than just trot gait and implement these movements in as smooth as a fashion as possible(most amount of steps per cycle). All of this relies on the under lying keimatics calculations.

I did ask on the Lobo forum about running 2 tasks parallel on the ESP32 in MicroPython. Lobo thinks if I implement my kiematic calculations in C they will be possibly 100 times faster than hoe I am doing them in python.

OutoftheBOTS_
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Re: ESP32 uMP cluster

Post by OutoftheBOTS_ » Wed Apr 18, 2018 9:42 pm

Also my original post was more to show off that someone had made a cluster with ESP32s and it was much simpler than I thought.

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