QUARC 2018
These release notes describe the new features and changes introduced in QUARC 2018. They are divided into the sections enumerated below.
New Software Compatibility
QUARC 2018 has introduced compatibility with the following third-party software.
Compatibility with MATLAB, Simulink, and Simulink Coder R2017b has been added.
Compatibility with MATLAB, Simulink, and Simulink Coder R2018a has been added.
Compatibility with MATLAB, Simulink, and Simulink Coder R2018b has been added.
Compatibility with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 Professional/Community Editions have been added.
New Targets
QUARC 2018 now supports the following new targets.
The QUARC Linux x64 Target supports one of the newest Quanser embedded Linux targets. Refer to QUARC Linux x64 Target for details. This target is intended for the Quanser QDrone.
The QUARC Linux RT ARMv7 Target supports one of the newest Quanser embedded Linux targets. Refer to QUARC Linux RT ARMv7 Target for details. This target is intended for the NI ELVIS III platform or the NI myRIO platform.
New Cards Supported
The full list of all the data acquisition cards supported by QUARC 2018 is given by the following link. QUARC 2018 may now also interface to the cards listed below.
Added support for the Quanser QDrone card.
Added support for the Quanser Controls Board for NI ELVIS III card, which is a top board for the NI ELVIS III platform.
Added support for the Default FPGA Personality for NI ELVIS III card, which allows the use of NI ELVIS III as general purpose platform using the default FPGA personality as supplied by National Instruments.
Added support for the Default FPGA Personality for NI myRIO 1900 card, which allows the use of NI myRIO as general purpose platform using the default FPGA personality as supplied by National Instruments.
New Demonstrations
The QUARC demonstrations added in QUARC 2018 are listed below.
Encoder Demonstrations
The QUARC Encoder Demo example shows how to reads the encoder readings, as well as commands the actuator that is connected to the encoder. This sets up the infrastructure for closed-loop controls.
New Blocks
New blocks have been added to the QUARC Targets library in QUARC 2018. The new blocks are listed below.
Discrete Blocks
The Memory block holds and delays its input for one major timestep. This version of the block includes support for variable-size signals.
Host Blocks
The Host Disk block can be used to write data to disk on the host, even when the Simulink model is not connected.
The Host Heartbeat block can be used to monitor the health of a host connection.
Image Processing Blocks
The Image Compare block compares pixels of an image to given ranges.
The Image Convert block converts one image format to another.
The Image Find Corners block finds corners within an image.
The Image Find Objects block finds objects within an image.
The Image Optical Flow blocks computes the optical flow between successive images.
Math Operations Blocks
The Angle and Axis from Rotation Matrix block converts a rotation matrix to the equivalent rotation angle about a fixed axis.
The Angle and Axis to Rotation Matrix block converts a rotation by an angle about an arbitrary axis into a rotation matrix.
The Basis from Rotation Matrix block converts a rotation matrix to a basis of three unit vectors.
The Basis to Rotation Matrix block converts a basis of three unit vectors to a rotation matrix.
The Euler Angles from Rotation Matrix block converts a rotation matrix to an Euler angle representation.
The Euler Angles to Rotation Matrix block creates a rotation matrix from an Euler angle representation.
The Quaternion from Euler Angles block creates a quaternion from an Euler angle representation.
The Quaternion from Rotation Matrix block creates a quaternion from a rotation matrix representation.
The Quaternion to Euler Angles block converts a quaternion to an Euler angle representation.
The Quaternion to Rotation Matrix block converts a quaternion to a rotation matrix.
The Trace block computes the trace of a square matrix.
The Transformation from Euler Angles block creates a homogeneous transformation from an Euler angle representation.
The Vector from Skew Symmetric Matrix block extracts a 3-vector from a skew-symmetric matrix.
The Vector to Skew Symmetric Matrix block converts a 3-vector to a skew-symmetric matrix.
Mavlink Blocks
The Mavlink Initialize block connects to an auto-pilot which uses the Mavlink protocol.
The Mavlink Enumeration block allows Mavlink enumeration constants to be used symbolically in the diagram.
The Mavlink Receive block receives Mavlink packets from one or more systems.
The Mavlink Send block sends Mavlink packets to one or more systems.
Multimedia Blocks
The Video Compressed Display block displays video images in a window on the host, using compression to minimize bandwidth.
The Video3D Initialize block initializes a 3D imaging device, such as an RGBD camera.
The Video3D Capture block captures images from a 3D imaging device, such as an RGBD camera.
Ports & Subsystems Blocks
The Host Subsystem block is a subsystem that executes on the host rather than the target. However, it must be a sink. It cannot contain Outport blocks. It also cannot contain blocks with continuous states. However, it can be used to do post-processing of signals on the host.
Serial Receiver Blocks
The Serial Receiver Read block receives RC commands from a serial receiver.
The Serial Receiver Write block emulates a serial receiver.
Signal Routing Blocks
The Channel block may be used to send large signals to Simulink. It is particularly useful for images.
Improved Features
Some of the features improved in QUARC 2018 are enumerated below. There are a great many miscellaneous improvements that have not been listed. Only some of the highlights are listed below.
The compression quality is now optionally available as an external input port on the Image Compress block. This feature allows the compression quality to be controlled dynamically. For example, it may be useful to make the compression quality a function of the WiFi signal strength so that less bandwidth is required when transmitting a video signal over a weak connection.
The To Host File block now supports saving the data as a video stream to an MP4 or WMV file. It also supports complex signals now with most output formats.
The Joint Control Robot - 4 DOF (formerly known as Kinova 4-DOF MICO Robot, see the Miscellaneous section for more details about the name change) can now be controlled in torque mode, the Kinova 4-DOF MICO Read block would return the commanded joint control modes, and the Kinova 4-DOF MICO Write block now accepts control mode and joint torque commands as input to the block.
The recommended version of the NaturalPoint's Motive software is now version 2.0.1 for 64-bit systems, or 1.9.0 for 32-bit systems. Installation instructions have been updated in the OptiTrack Point Cloud block and OptiTrack Trackables help pages.
Added support for reading the docking IR sensors of the Quanser QBot 2 by introducing 18 new digital input signals.
Miscellaneous
The following shows the miscellaneous changes in QUARC 2018.
Starting with QUARC 2018, the QUARC version is renamed to follow the year of the release.
Internal version number for QUARC 2018 is 2.7.
The Kinova 4-DOF MICO Robot and Kinova 6-DOF MICO Robot have been renamed to Joint Control Robot - 4 DOF and Joint Control Robot - 6 DOF, respectively. The change of the name reflects the fact that QUARC must work with customized version of the Kinova 4-DOF/6-DOF MICO robots in order to enable open-architecture control of the robot.
Deprecated Features
| Some of the previous QUARC features have been deprecated in QUARC 2018, as mentioned below. Many of the deprecated features may continue to work, but are no longer supported and should be avoided. |
MATLAB Versions No Longer Supported
MATLAB R2015b is no longer supported.
MATLAB R2016a is no longer supported.
MATLAB R2016b is no longer supported.
Development Host
The 32-bit Windows Host is no longer supported since MATLAB R2017a (the minimum MATLAB version that QUARC 2018 supports) and beyond do not support 32-bit Windows.
QUARC Blocks
The CRS A465 blocks have been deprecated.
The CAT5 Joint Torques to Motor Inputs block has been deprecated.
Bug Fixes
Some of the bug fixes in QUARC 2018 are enumerated below. This list is not complete. Only some of the highlights are listed below.
It is now easier to select channels from an image in the channel selection dialogs. Previously, clicking on the boundary of a selection area was not selecting the channel. Now it does.
Numerous bugs in the Host blocks were fixed which affected their reliability.
Fixed bug in driver support for the NI PCIe-6353 card and added full support for all encoder channels.
Fixed bug in Stream Send and Stream Write blocks in which the dimensions for variable-size signals were not sent correctly for dimensions exceeding 255 bytes.
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