Can we support MacOS?

[haixuanTao]

Describe the feature you want

I couldn't find info about support for macOS and I understand it depends on the CAN adapter?

[kou]

Correct.

It seems that macOS doesn't support CAN officially. But it seems that there is a third-party project for CAN on macOS: https://mac-can.github.io/

Our recommended CAN adapter (for Linux) is https://www.pibiger-tech.com/product/savvycan-fd-x2/ .

See also: https://docs.openarm.dev/hardware/bill-of-materials/electrical

It seems that it uses "PCAN-USB Pro FD" internally. We may be able to use https://github.com/mac-can/PCBUSB-Library to use CAN with the CAN adapter on macOS.

BTW, why do you want to use OpenArm on macOS not Linux?

[haixuanTao]

I think that for "general purpose" robot we would need household computer like a macbook to be supported.

@pkooij worked on a WIP but apparently it was a bit laggy compared to Linux.

I think it would be great to have a tracking issue so that people can just track MacOS support.

[kou]

OK. I understand.

Let's use this issue for tracking macOS support.

@pkooij worked on a WIP but apparently it was a bit laggy compared to Linux.

Does this mean that we can use CAN on macOS? If so, could you share how to do it?

[haixuanTao]

Oh so @pkooij told me it actually didn't work.

[kou]

Oh... OK. Let's find a way to use CAN on macOS.

[haixuanTao]

I think it could also be something like providing a raspberry pi adapter. I'm currently looking on another project looking at linux USB Gadget to serial and it seems a neat way to bridge OSes.

[kou]

Does it mean the following?

• A Raspberry Pi has a CAN device
• The Raspberry Pi and a macOS are connected by USB
• The macOS communicates with the Raspberry Pi as a serial device

It'll work well. :-)

[haixuanTao]

It's one possibility that does not require to switch the whole CAN Adapter.

Claude also talked about https://github.com/INNO-MAKER/usb2can that could potentially work but yeah AI generated stuff...

[haixuanTao]

FYI, I have first POC of a Mac based remotely controlling openarm. It's still very highly experimental and want to run couple of more experiments.

It uses my Rust based rewrite of this repo.

Let me know, if that's something that might interest you :)

[kou]

Wow! Could you share your PoC? It uses a Raspberry Pi as a bridge, right?

[haixuanTao]

I'm still working on couple of things like camera virtualization and would be accessible as a standalone package, as well as within lerobot, and dora.

Just by curiosity do you use lerobot or dora by any chance or your own infra?

[kou]

Great!

We wrote our infra for data collection by teleoperation, training, inference and auto evaluation as the first step. They are working well. We're evaluating dora for data collection, inference and auto evaluation. Some LeRobot features such as dataset are used but we're using the original policy implementations not LeRobot's policy implementations for now.

We'll release some dora nodes and dataflows once they are ready. :-)

[haixuanTao]

incredible very cool!

[haixuanTao]

Nice!

Okay, I had a bug on macOS WIFI that introduced a 100ms latency every second or so but fixed with ethernet cable.

The repo for connection is here: https://github.com/haixuanTao/XoQ

And basically,

running 2 can server:

# within XoQ repo
cargo run --release --example can_server --features   "iroh,can"  -- can0:fd

and then using lerobot from a Mac:

lerobot-teleoperate \
    --robot.type=openarm_follower \
    --robot.port=<SERVER_1_KEY> \
    --robot.side=right \
    --robot.id=my_follower \
    --teleop.type=openarm_leader \
    --teleop.port=<SERVER_2_KEY> \ 
 --fps 60   --teleop.id=my_leader

This make it possible to teleoperate one arm from a MacBook.

Would love to make a demo if you guys are interested!