Hi everyone,
I'm running an experiment to measure the loads on a wing. Until recently, the wing was actuated by a simple RC motor (see here), but now I want to run the experiment with a Dynamixel AX-12 "smart" servo for finer control and more feedback. However, I'm not quite sure what the best method is for controlling the Dynamixel AX-12.
The AX-12 uses asynchronous TTL serial to communicate back/forth with a controlling device. I can control the servo with an Arbotix-M microcontroller, and I can program the microcontroller through the Arduino IDE. However, after reading this NI example, it looks like I can control the servo directly through my PC--no microcontroller necessary. I'm guessing the white paper uses this USB dongle, but before I chase serial control through a dongle+low-level serial commands, I wanted to see if NI has more "elegant" solutions to this problem.
Specifically, are there any serial add-ons or toolboxes that I can use with CDAQ devices for high-level smart servo control? Something like Linx for servos. Or do I have to "manually" parse serial commands to transfer data to/from front panel to data packets?
Thanks