QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target :: QUARC Targets

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

QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target

The Linux NVIDIA target currently supports the Ubuntu O/S running on a NVIDIA Jetson TX2™ board. It is currently tailored for the Quanser QCar. This section provides a general description of the QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target in addition to limitations and requirements for this target type. Please use the following list to refer to each topic:

Description
Limitations
Requirements

Description

The QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target currently supports the Ubuntu Linux Operating System (OS) running on an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 board. The Jetson TX2 board is offered by NVIDIA. The Jetson TX2 board contains a quad-core ARM Cortx A57 MPCore processor 1.2 GHz 64-bit CPU with 8 GB 128-bit LPDDR4 59.7 GB/s RAM, as well as a dual-core NVIDIA Denver 2 64-bit CPU, for a total of six 64-bit processor cores. IT also contains a 256-core NVIDIA Pascal GPU with 256 CUDA cores. The Jetson TX2 is suitable for computationally intensive applications, including artificial intelligence and image processing.

On the Quanser QCar, it also supports USB3, dual HDMI, 1 Gb LAN, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi, four 8 MP wide-angle cameras for 360 degree visibility, an Intel D435 RGBD stereoscopic camera, I2C, SPI, UART, encoders, PWM, LCD display, buttons, CAN bus, LIDAR, analog inputs and GPIO.

The QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target is a soft real-time system. The Ubuntu Linux operating system is not designed to guarantee that events are always processed within a particular timeframe, as in a hard real-time system. Thus, if an operation misses its deadline, it is considered "less" than correct but not an application or system failure. The system simply tolerates the missed deadline and performs the operation with delay. In real-time applications, this behaviour is undesirable since all operations must meet their deadlines. In particular, real-time control applications expect the sampling rate of the controller to be maintained, and no samples to be missed.

To minimize the delays in processing real-time events, the QUARC Linux NVIDIA 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 all other processes, including operating system processes performing important tasks, such as networking. Hence, a real-time process that executes for more than a brief interval may cause networking to be unresponsive, for example.

Please keep in mind that using QUARC with a QUARC Linux NVIDIA 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 NVIDIA 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 QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target. The following is a list of these limitations:

Real-Time Performance

Warning The QUARC Linux NVIDIA Target is a soft real-time system. For real-time processes with critical time constraints (e.g. advanced robotics), this target may not be suitable.

Sampling Rates

Warning While fast sampling rates may be specified, rates faster than 2 kHz are not recommended as jitter increases at faster sample rates.

Requirements

Code is generated in QUARC on a remote Windows host for the NVIDIA target, as MATLAB and Simulink do not run natively on the target. Hence, MATLAB, Simulink and QUARC are required on a Windows host PC. Please note that even though QUARC must be installed on the Windows host, it is still necessary to have QUARC installed on the NVIDIA target, since the QUARC Target Manager must be present where the generated code is running.

Please note that if your only intended target is an NVIDIA Jetson TX2, 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.

Once the code is generated on the Windows host, it is automatically downloaded to the NVIDIA target. In order to achieve this, QUARC must also be installed on the NVIDIA Jetson TX2. The QUARC installer for the NVIDIA target is found on QUARC installation disk under the quarc\linux_nvidia folder. Quanser products using the NVIDIA target, like the Quanser QCar, will already have QUARC installed.

Technical Support Package

Warning Due to the high flexibility and customizability of an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 system, Quanser only provides limited technical support. If required, please contact the Quanser Sales department for more details regarding running QUARC on an NVIDIA Jetson TX2 board interfacing with your own application(s). The following is a link to the Quanser Support site.

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