RTT Online API Documentation

1.8.5

Introduction

This is the Online API documentation of the Orocos Real-Time Toolkit.

Recommendation

It is easiest to browse the classes by modules, to not loose the overview. Click for example on the Modules List link, select a module and then you get the most important classes for this module.

You will most likely also need to read the online manuals.

Real-Time Toolkit classes (RTT)

The classes in the RTT namespace form the application independent control services which defines the portable framework for defining software components.

A component is implemented using the RTT::TaskContext class. The Component interface consits of five parts: events: RTT::Event, commands: RTT::Command, methods: RTT::Method, properties: RTT::Property, RTT::Attribute and data ports: RTT::DataPort, RTT::BufferPort.

A Component is run by a RTT::PeriodicActivity or RTT::NonPeriodicActivity which attaches a thread to the Execution Engine. The RTT::ExecutionEngine is the beating heart of each component which executes the the application code, reacts to events, processes commands etc. Scripting is enabled by the RTT::ScriptingAccess, XML can be read by the RTT::MarshallingAccess. Many other classes are available as well.

CORBA support (network communication)

Components can be connected over a network using the CORBA classes. Only two classes are required: RTT::Corba::ControlTaskServer and RTT::Corba::ControlTaskProxy. The former exports a local TaskContext instance to the network, using the CORBA Naming Service if available, the latter represents a remote TaskContext (located using the name or IOR) and allows local TaskContexts to communicate with the remote instance.

The RTT must be compiled with the --enable-corba flag in order to enable this extension.

Hardware Access and Device Interface

Orocos has an abstraction layer and some utility classes to access common devices (IO, encoders,...) from applications. The Device Interface headers can be found in rtt/dev.

The device drivers are not implemented by the RTT, but provided by components. See the Orocos Components Library (OCL) documentation for a list of supported devices and examples.