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All releases tagged Major feature enhancements

Changes: This release adds event-based data ports, allowing a component to wake up when data arrives. Components are created with a default activity for sequential processing of commands and events. The CORBA transport layer now also supports OMNIORB middleware. The component library has been updated to support better loading and unloading of components in running applications. Data reporting has been polished.

Changes: Component network communication is now more flexible, allowing you to choose a communication protocol at runtime instead of compile time. Component compile times and memory footprints have drastically improved. The component model has been extended with an Error and Active component state. Debian packages supporting RTAI/LXRT, GNU/Linux, and Xenomai for Debian Etch have been made available for the first time.

Changes: The improved component model allows on-line component (re-)configuration and better control over threading. The new build system for shared and static libraries uses CMake for configuration and supports cross-compiling for PowerPC as well.

Changes: This release allows rapid software component development and prototyping for control applications. Each component comes with a built-in XML configuration, a realtime scripting interface, data ports for thread-safe data exchange, and a user-definable command interface. The "TaskBrowser" component helps developers run and debug their components, stand-alone or in a network, and helps eliminate recompilation steps during development.

Changes: This major feature release adds component network distribution, using TAO, but no CORBA knowledge is required. Furthermore, any external library (or user program) can extend Orocos with its own data types (structs) for use in capturing, real-time scripting, XML serialization, and network transport. Finally, this release supports a new component model, for which components are developed in a separate software project.

Changes: The Control Kernel was extended with a 'Process' Component, which allows one to redefine the order in which Components are run, and a 'Kinematics' Component that tracks the robot's kinematic state in N-degrees of freedom. The Orocos 'State Machines' can now change state on the basis of Orocos events, which are reimplemented to be lock-free and hard real-time. The 'Task Contexts' were given Data Flow ports and define the new Component model for Orocos.

Changes: This major feature release focused on refactoring of the API, validation and improvement of the realtime scripting language, and improvement of the overall realtime performance. The documentation has been reordered to separate the "Realtime Control Services" from the "Robot Control Software". Usability classes have been added to reduce the "red tape" code required to setup an Orocos application. This is demonstrated by a new demo application ("taskintro") which is fully interactive and is hardware independent.

Changes: This release introduces a 'task infrastructure' that allows application writers to design and implement real-time, multi-threaded units of functionality. A task's interface has attributes, methods, commands, and events, which can be exported to a high-level real-time scripting language. Tasks within applications are online browsable and can be manipulated interactively using the 'TaskBrowser'. A real-time scripting language allows you to write type- and thread-safe, high-level programs using state machines or functional programming.

Changes: The Control Kernel Architecture has been revised to allow easier application development, and several ready-to-use control components are available and documented. A multi-channel PID Controller has been added, and components can be given commands using a new console implementation. The program scripting language has been extended to contain conditional statements (if, while, for), and syntax error reporting has been improved.

Changes: The program processor now supports parallel execution of "Orocos Machine State" scripts and "Program" scripts. The Hardware Abstraction Layer has been improved, and two generic hardware access and two axis motion control kernel components were added. A Cartesian space MoveTo/Wait and a position tracking component were added. Bugfixes include XML parser memory leak fixes and program parsing improvements. The contents of DataObjects can now be logged "out of the box". All motion/machine control examples are more interactive using a new Human-Machine Interface.