la-common

Common C++ libraries shared applied control projects: e.g., real-time control of a mini race car, in simulation or on the real car; flight simulation and control of an airborne wind energy system.

Libraries

Library	CMake target	Description
main-control-common	main_control_common	Base classes and utilities for control loops: control loop skeleton (ControlBase), math, types and helper utilities, and a Kalman bias estimator.
model-common	model_common	Base classes for system dynamics and parameters, with Eigen and CasADi variants, and quaternion math.
simulation-common	simulation_common	Simulator base classes, simulation engines (Eigen and CasADi), ODE integration, and sensor models.
mpc-control-common	mpc_control_common	Generic building blocks for MPC: optimizer interface, CasADi Opti-based optimal control problem base class, and multiple shooting and Radau collocation transcriptions.

All libraries are header-only except main_control_common.

Requirements

• C++11 compiler and CMake
• Eigen 3
• yaml-cpp (model-common)
• CasADi (optional for model-common and simulation-common, set -DWITH_CASADI=ON; used by mpc-control-common by default)

Usage

The libraries are not installed as separate packages. A package that needs one includes it in its own source tree with add_subdirectory, so it is always built from the sources you are editing.

Add this repository as a single git submodule at the root of your project:

git submodule add https://github.com/jowaibel/la-common.git la-common

Then create a symlink in the lib/ folder of each package that needs a library, pointing to the library folder in la-common. For example, for a control package, create the symlink my-control-package/lib/main-control-common pointing to la-common/main-control-common (ln -s).

The package then uses the library like any subfolder:

# my-control-package/CMakeLists.txt
add_subdirectory(lib/main-control-common)
target_link_libraries(my_control PUBLIC main_control_common)

Git stores symlinks as such, which works on Linux and macOS; on Windows, git needs symlink support enabled.

The top-level COLCON_IGNORE file keeps colcon from building the libraries as standalone packages when this repository is placed inside a ROS 2 workspace.

Credits

This project is developed by Johannes Waibel at the Automatic Control Laboratory at EPFL, Switzerland.

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under the NCCR Automation (grant agreement 51NF40_225155).

License

BSD 2-Clause, see LICENSE.