This sounds nearly identical to the system we use here at Willow Garage on the PR2.

We're using a PREEMPT_RT kernel (2.6.31+, moving to 3.0) with a 1kHz control loop in user space.

-Austin

Jonathan Hurst <jonathan.hurst@oregonstate.edu> wrote:

>Dear ROS Users,
>
>We would like to use Robot Operating System on ATRIAS, the bipedal
>robot we are building
>(http://mime.oregonstate.edu/research/drl/Site%20Pages/Atrias.html),
>but we must have reliable real-time control at 1kHz with communication
>over an EtherCAT bus.  We have assembled some existing software tools
>to enable this, including the EtherLab driver and Orocos RTT to tie
>things all together in real time.  If you are interested in this
>discussion, please feel free to join the Email list - it has a brief
>history with one or two summaries of working systems, but I hope we
>will have much more detailed discussions, or receive pointers to other
>working systems.  You can sign up for the list here:
>https://secure.engr.oregonstate.edu/mailman/listinfo/ethercat-ros
>
>Jonathan
>-- 
>*****************************************************************************
>Jonathan W. Hurst
>Assistant Professor
>School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering
>Oregon State University
>204 Rogers Hall
>Corvallis, OR 97331-6001
>
>jonathan.hurst@oregonstate.edu
>Voice: (541) 737-7010
>Fax: (541) 737-2600
>http://mime.oregonstate.edu/research/jhurst/
>******************************************************************************
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