XBOX360-CONTROLLER-API

I needed to use a XBOX 360 Controller on an AI & Robotics project at home and I did not want to be bound to Kernel level drivers or other external drivers.

So, I decided to write a XBOX 360 Controller API that works directly with the XBOX 360 USB wireless PC adapter hardware and supports up to 4 controllers.

The second goal was to make this as cross platform as possible, so I ended up using libusb-1.0.0 which supposedly can run on Linux, Mac and Windows. Althought right now I only have support for Linux (The rest will come soon).

Its a very fast asyncronous API that supports all functions including rumble.

The API is super easy to use and I include a sample app.

Running The Example:

• clone ths repo git clone https://github.com/kooscode/xbox360-controller-api.git
• Build the sample app by excuting: make
• Then run the sample app by executing: sudo bin\controller-test (see notes at the bottom)
• NOTE: You might need to install required package: libusb-1.0-0-dev (It came pre-installed on my NVIDIA Jetson Nano)

Using the API:

• Simply include XBOX360.hpp

• Create an instance of XBOX360 class and it will automatically detect a XBOX 360 Wireless adapter plugged into USB

• The API has 5 very simple functions:

  void SetLED(ControllerIndex, LEDSetting)

  • This Sets the Controller LED's to 16 pre-set conditions, including effects like flashing and fanning.
  • Check the XBOX360Defines.hpp file for pre-set enum called LED_SETTING

  void SetRumble(ControllerIndex, BigWeight, SmallWeight)

  • Rumble the Controller's Right Big and Left Small motors, valid values are 0-255
  • This function will rumble until you manually set the values back to zero to stop rumble.

  void SetRumbleTimed(ControllerIndex, BigWeight, SmallWeight, RumbleTimeMS)

  • Rumble the Controller's Right Big and Left Small motors, valid values are 0-255
  • This function will rumble using the supplied settings for a specific duration in milliseconds and will then automatically stop.

  void GetControllerState(ControllerIndex, &ControllerState)

  • Get the current Controller State, this will provide state for all Buttons, Triggers and Thumb Sticks.
  • Look in the XBOX360Defines.hpp file for theCONTROLLER_STATE struct that holds all controller state

  bool GetWaitControllerState(ControllerIndex, &ControllerState, TimeoutMS)

  • This function will wait for a change received from the controller and then provide latest controller state upon change.
  • You can supply a Timeout value in milliseconds to wait for a controller change, if no change was detected, the function will return false and current values will be returned in the referenced controller state object.
  • Look in the XBOX360Defines.hpp file for theCONTROLLER_STATE struct that holds all controller state

**NOTES

• This API utilizes background running threads to constantly monitor all 4 controllers that might be connected to the Wireless receiver and you will get instantanous values from the controller when any changes occur.
• At this time you need to run your apps using sudo because this API will detach any existing Kernel drivers holding onto the controllers and access the hardware directly.

Credits

Thanks to the Xboxdrv Linux User Space driver sources for hints as to the USB Report formats sent to the Wireless Controller. That helped a lot! (https://github.com/xboxdrv/xboxdrv)