How can I use the iCub and ergoCub's FirmwareUpdater to interact with a network of ETH boards (like EMS or MC4PLUS) with a network address different from 10.0.1.104?

[traversaro]

How can I use the iCub and ergoCub's FirmwareUpdater to interact with a network of ETH boards (like EMS or MC4PLUS) with a network address different from 10.0.1.104?

[traversaro]

By default, the FirmwareUpdater will use the 10.0.1.104 address as it is the address used by icub-head or ergocub-torso to communicate with the ETH boards likes EMS or MC4PLUS.

However, if you are connecting to the ETH network with a different computer (for example with an operator laptop) using 10.0.1.104 for your laptop is not a good idea if the icub-head or ergocub-torso is also present in the network with the 10.0.1.104 address, as the ARP protocol can give confusing results if you connect two nodes that claim to have the same IP to the same network.

An alternative is to just assign a different IP address to your laptop (for example 10.0.1.105), and tell the FirmwareUpdater to use a different IP by creating a file called firmrwareupdaterlocal.ini with the following content:

[DRIVERS]
ETH "10.0.1.105:3333"

and then invoke FirmwareUpdater with the new file:

FirmwareUpdater -f firmrwareupdaterlocal.ini

In this way, you can interact with the ETH boards using your laptop with an address different from the default 10.0.1.104.