AICA Core v4.3.0

[eeberhard]

Version 4.3.0 of AICA Core includes several new and impactful features in AICA Studio, the API and the behavior of the Event Engine and core controllers.

The highlights include:

• API authentication with users and scopes of permissions
• Joint trajectory controller for fast and precise motion sequences
• Customizable graph edges in the application editor
• Improved 3D viewer in Studio with interactive and dynamic TF frames

API

This version adds an authentication layer to the API with managed users and scopes. Endpoints can require authorization with either a username and password or an opaque API token and additionally required specific access scopes. Users and tokens are stored in the local database with their respective scopes and managed through new endpoints.

A user with administration scopes is required to manage and create other users. If no users exist, as is the case for a new configuration, a super-admin role can be used for first time setup. Update to the newest version of AICA Launcher to create new configurations with this super-admin role.

The new API resources can be found under the /api/v2/auth and /api/v2/users namespaces. Any API clients will need to be upgraded to use the necessary authorization interfaces to work with Core v4.3.0. Refer to the newest version of the Python API Client on github.com/aica-technology/api for more information.

AICA Studio

This release brings several new features including user account and authorization management, customizable graph edges, and an improved 3D viewer.

This version of Studio supports the new user roles and authentication layer in the API. Access the user page to view the currently logged-in user and available authorization scopes, change the current password, create API keys or log out. Users with the admin scope also have access to the settings page to create and manage other users and connect and synchronize the system with AICA Cloud Storage.

In this version, the path of signal and event edges in the application graph are now customizable! Click and drag on an edge to reposition it, or click on an edge to create a new corner point to divide the edge further.

The application editor now supports application frames (named points with user-defined position and orientation). Frames specified in the application code are rendered in the 3D viewer and can be edited interactively while the application is not running. The 3D viewer now also renders the available dynamic and static TF frames at application runtime.

The "Robot State Broadcaster" controller is now included by default when a new hardware node is added to an application. The live 3D visualization of robot models is also made more consistent when working with non-default hardware names or multiple hardware nodes.

The application editor now rejects incompatible signal connections (for example, between JointState and CartesianState signal types), which helps to prevent unexpected runtime behavior.

This release also includes numerous fixes to the stability and behavior of Studio, including better handling of edge-cases in graph editing and generation that previously caused errors, showing correct hardware parameters on the first render, and improving interaction and scrolling behavior in menus.

Features

• Implement draggable graph edges
• Add login flow
• Add admin user management
• Add password change form
• Add API keys management
• Add signal type information to the signal tooltip on hover
• Reject invalid connection attempts for incompatible signal types
• Add robot state broadcaster to hardware interfaces by default
• Support application frames in the YAML
• Show TFs with axes and label in the 3D scene view
• Add interactive application frames to the 3D scene view

Fixes

• Improved behavior if all text is deleted in the code editor
• Close active menu when another menu is open
• Display hardware parameters on parameter view first entry
• Fix graph generation when condition source is a controller predicate
• Fix alignment of graph background dots
• Clean up and remove deleted elements in the YAML
• Prevent scrolling on the right side of the file manager
• Gracefully retry initial page loading with API connection and auto login

Event Engine

Version 5.2.0 is a minor update that adds support for application frames by publishing them as static transforms on application start and makes the robot description of a loaded hardware interface available on a namespaced topic. Additionally, it improves the behavior and consistency of logging in YAML parsing and URDF loading.

Features

• Parse and publish application frames from YAML as static TF
• Parse application dependencies from yaml
• Publish robot description from controller manager interface

Fixes

• Use ROS logging instead of stderr in certain parsers and loaders
• Improve logging around loading of urdfs

Core Collection

This release adds a modified version of the ROS 2 JointTrajectoryController to the core controllers. It allows following trajectories in joint space from a service call and TF lookups or from an input signal.

The core library also includes the new StringToStringSerial that allows serial port communication for string messages.

The robot state broadcaster controller no longer implicitly publishes the robot description topic in the background, as this is now the explicit responsibility of the Event Engine for each loaded hardware interface.