Using maxon motors and EPOS4 controllers over CAN bus on NVIDIA Jetson

Autonomous Machines Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson Projects
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Hi,

For those who want to connect motors to their Jetson boards, please follow this tutorial on how to use maxon EPOS4 Positioning Controllers with ROS 1 using the CANopen package ros_canopen.

Here are some guidelines depending on the Jetson version that you use:

  • Jetson TX2: The documentation contains a specific chapter (§6, page 32) on how to get the EPOS4 controllers working on the Jetson TX2, on both hardware and software level.
  • Jetson Xavier NX and Jetson AGX Xavier: For wiring please look at the Developer Kit Carrier Board Specification and adapt the documentation instructions accordingly. Regarding the software, you need to enable the PLLAON clock as explained here to be able to set the bitrate to standard CAN values (1 MHz, 500 KHz etc).
  • Jetson Nano : This version doesn’t have an integrated CAN bus, however you can use a USB to CAN converter, such as the USB-to-CAN V2 from Ixxat.

This documentation and sample code is currently using ROS 1, however a bridge to ROS 2 can be made using the following instructions.

Looking forward to seeing new robotics projects using maxon EPOS4 on NVIDIA Jetson boards!

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