Ilmsens HAL API  1.1.1
A cross-platform C-library for interfacing m:explore UWB-sensors
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Function Reference Manual - HAL API

HAL-API for software development with m:explore ultra-wideband sensors

Introduction

As a service to our customers who want to integrate Ilmsens UWB sensors into their software environment, Ilmsens offers a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) application programming interface (API) for the m:explore ultra-wideband (UWB) sensors ("the software"). The HAL API comes in form of a dynamic library working on top of the device drivers with corresponding C header files. This is the function reference for the API.

The HAL API is available for different operating systems and allows device management, sensor configuration, acquisition configuration, and performing measurements. It abstracts from device- or digital interface-specific details as much as possible to enable portability of the application software. Future generations of the HAL API and Ilmsens UWB sensors will be developed with backward compatibility in mind. Product-specific extensions will extend the API rather than changing existing functions.

By default, the HAL API is provided as software in binary (compiled) form for many popular operating systems. Should the provided functionality be insufficient for the customer's purposes, please contact Ilmsens for other options (see below). We provide limited software support for the HAL API. To report problems, ask for help, or suggest improvements, contact Ilmsens (see below).

Copyright and Disclaimer

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR ANYONE DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

All product and company names in this document may be the trademarks and tradenames of their respective owners and are hereby acknowledged.

Further documentation

This is a function reference only. Ilmsens provides additional documentation in various guides.

  • HAL API Programming Guide

    A software developer can find design and basic background information in the programming guide to ease application development. Data format, buffer layout, and typical data processing steps are explained as well.

  • HAL API Setup Guide

    The setup guide explains how to install the HAL library, the dependencies, and how to test successful installation.

Third party software

The HAL library makes use of great software developed by open source communities. These modules and libraries allow us to make the HAL library available on many platforms and operating systems. We appriciate this work very much and would like to thank the contributors of the following projects:

The libusb project

We are using libusb-1.0 for communication with our sensors. The library is available on many Linux flavours and most modern Windows platfoms (where it makes use of the built-in WinUSB drivers thus avoiding the need for proprietary driver development).

Check out these ressources:

The POCO project

POCO provides a very powerful multi-threaded framework for logging messages, errors, etc. It can be setup in a hierarchical manner and allows fine grain control of what gets logged to where. We are using libpocofoundation-1.7 for logs from the HAL library.

Check out these ressources:

Third party tools

The development of the HAL library is done with the following great and free tools. They help a lot in keeping the library consitent, easy to build, and the documentation up to date. We appriciate these tools very much and would like to thank their contributors.

Check out these tools:

  • Version control system: Git
  • Building and Packaging: CMake
  • Code documentation: Doxygen

Contact Ilmsens

Ilmsens GmbH
Ehrenbergstr. 11
98693 Ilmenau
Germany

Tel.: +49 3677 76130-30
Fax: +49 3677 76130-39
Email: hal-a.nosp@m.pi@i.nosp@m.lmsen.nosp@m.s.co.nosp@m.m