Below is a quick description of each piece of software needed by RoboSim

Control Software

Octave

Free & open source interpreter of .m scripts. Provides ability to do matrix-style manipulation of data, rapid prototyping of models, serial port interaction, basic GUI and multi threading capabilities, and very nice data plotting.

Another wonderful product of GNU.

Matlab

Same as octave, but more features, but costs $. We don't use it. Yet.

Development Software

Arduino IDE

Free editor, compiler, and uploader for software targeted to be deployed on an Arduino.\

We use it for all the Arduino software development.

Eagle

Free electrical schematic design software. Allows designer to create a joined electrical schematic and printed circuit board design, and derive CAD files for actually building the PCB.

LTspice

Free electrical circuit simulation software, built around the powerful SPICE language.

We use it to prototype and model the behavior of the PWM filter board.

Git

Free & open source version control software

We use it to track changes, record releases, and facilitate development of software between multiple developers

Git Extensions

Free GUI front-end to GIT. Useful for visualizing version trees of git commits, and performing some Git actions. Not required, but nice to have.