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Table of Contents > QUARC > User's Guide > QUARC Targets > Specific Targets

QUARC Linux DuoVero Target

Legacy

The QUARC Linux DuoVero Target is a legacy target which was used to support the QBall 2 and QBot 2 mobile platforms. Since these platforms have been replaced by the QDrone and QBot 2e, respectively, the QUARC Linux DuoVero Target is only available for backwards compatibility.

One of the target types supported by QUARC is the Linux DuoVero target. The Linux DuoVero target currently supports Yocto Linux running on a gumstix DuoVero embedded board. The DuoVero is used at the core of the QBall-2 and QBot-2 mobile platforms. This section provides a general description of the Linux DuoVero target in addition to limitations and requirements for this target type. Please use the following list to refer to each topic:

Description

The QUARC Linux DuoVero target currently supports Yocto Linux running on a gumstix DuoVero embedded board. The DuoVero has a 1 GHz dual core ARM Cortex-A9™ processor with 1 GB of RAM.

The QUARC Linux DuoVero target assigns the highest possible priority to a model's real-time code. The threads of the real-time code will preempt the threads of other processes. Hence, a real-time process that executes for more than a brief interval may cause other processes to be unresponsive.

Please keep in mind that using QUARC with a Linux DuoVero target still requires a Windows host. Details on this requirement are given in the Requirements section of this page.

For more information about the data acquisition cards supported by the QUARC Linux DuoVero target, please refer to the QUARC Data Acquisition Card Support reference section in the QUARC documentation.

Limitations

There are a number of limitations imposed on the Linux DuoVero target. The following is a list of these limitations:

Real-Time Performance

Warning

The Linux DuoVero target is an embedded system. The processor has good performance but is not comparable to a desktop computer. It is more akin to a tablet or smartphone. Hence, for real-time processes with significant computational requirements (e.g. advanced robotics), this target may not be suitable.

Sampling Rates

Warning

While very fast sampling periods may be configured using the system timer, there is a practical limit to how fast a model may run on the Linux DuoVero target. Sampling periods faster than 5 kHz are not recommended.

Requirements

As mentioned earlier on this page, running code on a Linux DuoVero target still requires a remote Windows host to be present. This is required since the code to be run on the Linux DuoVero target first needs to be generated on a Windows system with MATLAB, Simulink and QUARC installed. Please note that even though QUARC must be installed on the Windows host, it is still necessary to have the QUARC runtime installed on the Linux DuoVero target, since the QUARC Target Manager must be present where the code is running.

Please note that if your only intended target is a Linux DuoVero target, the QUARC Windows target is not required and you can select not to install that component when installing QUARC. However the QUARC Simulink Development Environment component is required to generate code from your Simulink models.

The Linux DuoVero target uses a cross-compiler developed by Quanser for generating code from Windows for the DuoVero's Cortex-A9 ARM processor. The cross-compiler supports both the C and C++ languages. It is installed as part of the normal QUARC installation.

Technical Support Package

Warning Due to the high flexibility and customizability of a gumstix-based system together with the specificity of the gumstix configuration required to optimally use and run QUARC, only the Quanser products (e.g., QBall-2, QBot-2) using a gumstix board are currently directly supported by Quanser. If required, please contact the Quanser Sales department for more details regarding running QUARC on a gumstix board interfacing with your own application(s). The following is a link to the Quanser Contact Web Site.

 

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