MIP SDK

Welcome to the official MIP Software Development Kit.

If you have any questions or run into any issues, please let us know! MicroStrain Support Portal

Features

• Send commands using a single function

• Suitable for bare-metal microcontrollers

  • Minimal code size and memory footprint
  • No dynamic memory allocation
  • No dependence on any RTOS or threading

• Simple to interface with existing projects

  • FindMip.cmake is included for CMake-based projects

• It can be used to parse offline binary files

• C++ API for safety, flexibility, and convenience.

• C API for those who can't use C++

• Advanced Features

  • MIP packet creation
  • MIP packet parsing and field iteration
  • Data field deserialization

Examples

• Get device information [C++]
• Watch IMU [C | C++]
• Threading [C++]
• Ping [C++]
• Product-specific examples:
  • GQ7 setup [C | C++]
  • CV7 setup [C | C++]
  • GX5-45 setup [C | C++]
  • CV7_INS setup [C++]
  • CV7_INS with UBlox setup [C++]

You'll need to enable at least one of the communications interfaces in the CMake configuration to use the examples.

The examples take two parameters for the device connection:

• For a serial connection: Port and baudrate. Port must start with /dev/ on Linux or COM on Windows.
• For a TCP connection: Hostname and port. Hostname can be either a hostname like localhost or an IPv4 address.

Documentation

Documentation for all released versions can be found here.

C and C++ APIs

The C++ API is implemented on top of the C API to provide additional features:

• Object-oriented interfaces
• Improved type safety and sanity checking
• Better clarity / reduced verbosity (e.g. with using namespace mip)

The C++ API uses TitleCase for types and camelCase for functions and variables, while the C api uses snake_case naming for everything. This makes it easy to tell which is being used when looking at the examples.

The C API can be accessed directly from C++ via the mip::C namespace.

Command Results

MIP devices return an ack/nack field in response to commands to allow the user to determine if the command was successfully executed. These fields contain a "reply code" which is defined by the MIP protocol. This library additionally defines several "status codes" for situations where an ack/nack field is not applicable (i.e. if the device doesn't respond to the command, if the command couldn't be transmitted, etc).

See the documentation page for Command Results for details.

Timestamps

In order to implement command timeouts and provide time of arrival information, this library requires applications to provide the time of received data. The time must be provided as an unsigned integral value with a reasonable precision, typically milliseconds since program startup. By default the timestamp type is set to uint64_t, but some embedded applications may which to change this to uint32_t via the MIP_TIMESTAMP_TYPE define. Note that wraparound is permissible if the wraparound period is longer than twice the longest timeout used by the application.

See the documentation page for Timestamps.

Communications Interfaces

Two connection types are provided with the MIP SDK to make it easy to run the examples on both Windows and Linux systems.

Serial Port

A basic serial port interface is provided in C and C++ for Linux, Mac, and Windows. These can be modified for other platforms by the user. The serial port connection will be used in most cases, when the MIP device is connected via a serial or USB cable (the USB connection acts like a virtual serial port).

Enable it in the CMake configuration with -DMIP_USE_SERIAL=1.

TCP Client

The TCP client connection allows you to connect to a MIP device remotely. The MIP device must be connected via the normal serial or USB cable to a computer system running a TCP server which forwards data between the serial port and TCP clients.

Enable it in the CMake configuration with -DMIP_USE_TCP=1.

How to Build

Prerequisites

• A working C compiler
  • C11 or later required
• A working C++ compiler
  • For C++ API only. Define MIP_DISABLE_CPP=ON if you don't want to use any C++.
  • C++11 or later required for the mip library
  • C++14 or later for the examples (currently CMakeLists.txt assumes C++14 is required regardless)
• CMake version 3.10 or later (technically this is optional, see below)
• Doxygen, if building documentation

CMake Build Configuration

The following options may be specified when configuring the build with CMake (e.g. cmake .. -DOPTION=VALUE):

• MIP_USE_SERIAL - Builds the included serial port library (default enabled).
• MIP_USE_TCP - Builds the included socket library (default enabled).
• MIP_USE_EXTRAS - Builds some higher level utility classes and functions that may use dynamic memory.
• MIP_ENABLE_LOGGING - Builds logging functionality into the library. The user is responsible for configuring a logging callback (default enabled)
• MIP_LOGGING_MAX_LEVEL - Max log level the SDK is allowed to log. If this is defined, any log level logged at a higher level than this will result in a noop regardless of runtime configuration. Useful if you want some logs, but do not want the overhead compiled into the code.
• MIP_ENABLE_DIAGNOSTICS - Adds some counters to various entities which can serve as a debugging aid.
• BUILD_EXAMPLES - If enabled (-DBUILD_EXAMPLES=ON), the example projects will be built (default disabled).
• BUILD_TESTING - If enabled (-DBUILD_TESTING=ON), the test programs in the /test directory will be compiled and linked. Run the tests with ctest.
• BUILD_DOCUMENTATION - If enabled, the documentation will be built with doxygen. You must have doxygen installed.
• BUILD_DOCUMENTATION_FULL - Builds internal documentation (default disabled).
• BUILD_DOCUMENTATION_QUIET - Suppress standard doxygen output (default enabled).
• MIP_DISABLE_CPP - Ignores .hpp/.cpp files during the build and does not add them to the project.
• BUILD_PACKAGE - Adds a package target to the project that will build a .deb, .rpm, or .7z file containing the library
• MIP_TIMESTAMP_TYPE - Overrides the default timestamp type. See the timestamps section in the documentation.

Compilation

1. Create the build directory (e.g. mkdir build).
2. In the build directory, run cmake .. <options>
   • Replace <options> with your configuration options, such as -DMIP_USE_SERIAL=1.
   • You can use cmake-gui .. instead if you'd prefer to use the GUI tool (and have it installed).
   • An alternative generator may be used, such as ninja, code blocks, etc. by specifying -G <generator>
3. Invoke cmake --build . in the build directory
4. (Optional, if BUILD_PACKAGE was enabled) Run cmake --build . --target package to build the packages.

Building without CMake

If your target platform doesn't support CMake, you can build the project without it. To do so, include all the necessary files and define a few options.

Minimum Required Files for building without CMake

• Everything in src/mip/definitions (or at least all the descriptor sets you require)
• All the .c, .h, .cpp, and .hpp files in src/mip (exclude the c++ files if you're using plain C)
• The byte_ring and serialization .c/.h files in src/mip/utils
• You may optionally include the platform-related connection files (serial_port.h/.c) as desired.

Required #defines for building without CMake

Pass these to your compiler as appropriate, e.g. arm-none-eabi-gcc -DMIP_TIMESTAMP_TYPE=uint32_t -DMIP_ENABLE_LOGGING=0

• MIP_ENABLE_LOGGING (and MIP_LOGGING_MAX_LEVEL) - default is enabled
• MIP_TIMESTAMP_TYPE - defaults to uint64_t if not specified
• MIP_ENABLE_DIAGNOSTICS - Supported on embedded platforms to aid debugging

These options affect the compiled code interface and sizes of various structs. They MUST be consistent between compiling the MIP SDK and any other code which includes headers from the MIP SDK. (If you change them after building, make sure everything gets rebuilt properly. Normally CMake takes care of this for you).

Known Issues

• suppress_ack=true is not supported
• The commanded BIT, device settings, and capture gyro bias commands can time out unless the timeout is increased

See the documentation page for Known Issues.