White box robotics Pc-bot 914 User manual

Disclaimer

Working with electronics and installing the plastics will require care and patience. PROPER

GROUNDING PROCEDURES before handling the electronics. Touching the robot chassis (which is

common grounded throughout) and at the same time touching something that is grounded in your

home/office like metal pipes or the kitchen tap.

It is also expected that, working in a small area inside the unit that you perform careful and safe

handling of the hardware so as not to cause short circuits. We ask that you make sure you give yourself

enough working area and time for installation so as not to damage either the plastics or the electronics.

Liability

In no event will White Box Robotics, Inc. or Frontline Robotics, Inc. be liable for any damage,

including loss of data or profits, cost of cover, or other incidental, consequential or indirect damages

arising from the installation maintenance, use, performance, failure or interruption of White Box

Robotics, Inc. or Frontline Robotics Inc. products, whatever the cause and on any theory of liability.

This limitation applies even if White Box Robotics, Inc. or Frontline Robotics Inc. has been advised of

the possibility of such damage.

Unpacking the Robot

The following image shows how the PC-BOT should have arrived in the shipping box.

STEP 1 – Un-packing the robot

Remove the peripheral equipment wrapped in bubble wrap.

STEP 2 – Un-packing the robot cont.

Carefully remove the side and front/back supporting foam.

STEP 3 - Un-packing the robot cont.

Reach into the box and grab the handles on the PC-BOT. They are somewhat hidden from above. Lift

the robot straight up and out of the box.

WARNING! This robot is heavy. People with back problems should not attempt to lift this robot.

Always use proper lifting technique when lifting heavy items. Keep you knees bent and your back

straight and lift gently.

The following image shows where the handles are located, you’ll have to feel for them when the robot

is in the box. There are two handles front and back.

Setting-up the robot

STEP 1 – Charging the robot batteries

Now that the robot is out of the box, you should plug the charger in to charge the batteries. The charger

connector is found behind the left rear vent door on the back of the robot.

Flip the door open as shown in the above picture.

Unpack the charger and plug the charger jack into the lower connector on the robot labeled “Charger”.

The charger LED will first be GREEN after the AC cord is plugged into the wall. It will then change to

ORANGE when it is charging the batteries on the PC-BOT. It will then switch back to GREEN when

the batteries are fully charged (it typically takes 2 -2.5 hours to charge the batteries from the auto-

shutoff point).

Charging and shutdown

If the battery level goes below 11.2V the robot will auto-shutdown. Either while you are running the

robot, and especially when you are finished with it for the day, PLEASE REMEMBER TO RE-

CHARGE THE BATTERIES.

STEP 2 – Removing the head panel

The head and front/back torso body panels are attached with ball studs and sockets. This allows for

easy removal of the panels without tools. Gently remove the head by grabbing under the separation

(between the head and torso plastics) and pulling straight up.

STEP 3 – Removing the body panels

The torso body panels are removed in the same way as shown, except pulled backwards or forwards

depending on the torso body panel. You can use your thumbs to leaver while pulling on the body

panels with your finger tips.

Both body panels are removed in the same way.

STEP 4 – Plug in the monitor, keyboard and mouse

When viewing the back of the robot, you will see the External Power Supply jack (power supply not

included) and Charger jack on the left side, and on the right side the back panel of the Mini-ITX.

Plug the monitor, keyboard and mouse into the Mini-ITX back panel in order to setup your robot, like

the network etc.

STEP 5 – Start your system

Switch on the Main Power switch (RED) AND M3 Power switch (GREEN) on the front of the robot.

WAIT 5 seconds and the M2-ATX Power Supply will cycle the power to the PC automatically.

The M3 Power switch is used to turn on the M3 Controller. If this switch is OFF, the M3 will not be

able to drive the motors or read the sensors.

When the battery voltage drops to 11.2V (i.e. when the batteries need recharging, the M2-ATX will

cycle the power to the PC again to auto-shutdown before the power is cut (45 seconds later) and the

batteries are protected from total discharge.

This is the same as the user pushing the PC ON switch on the CPU and shutting down the computer.

On the other side of the front of the robot, you can still use the PC ON and PC Reset switch just like on

a regular computer.

NOTE: If the robot is sitting on a desk, it might be advisable to turn the M3 Switch OFF so that

the robot cannot drive off the table.

STEP 6 – Connecting Peripheral Devices

You should connect the Wireless device to the USB board mounted on the head if this is not already

done.

In this location the head can still be placed back on the robot and not interfere with the Wireless USB

Network Adapter or its antennae.

Reference Documents and Links

White Box Robotics Webpage: http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/

The Official Enthusiast Site for the 914 PC-BOT: http://www.914pcbots.com/community/

Support Documents – (Quick Start Guides, Basic Unit Computer Installation, Plastics Assembly, etc.)

http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/2006/PCBOTs/support.html

Technical Specifications

Wiring and Power: http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/2006/PCBOTs/pdf/PC-Bot_Tech_Spec-

WiringPowerv1.1.pdf

I/O Board Block Diagram: http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/2006/PCBOTs/pdf/PC-

Bot_Tech_Spec-IOBoardBlockDiagramv1.1.pdf

Infra-red Sensors: http://www.whiteboxrobotics.com/2006/PCBOTs/pdf/PC-Bot_Tech_Spec-Infra-

redSensorsv1.1.pdf

PC-BOT Software Section

914 PC-BOT, Linux Configuration, Systems information

OS installed: Linux - Ubuntu 6.06.1 LTS

Username: wbr

Password: wbr

(SU) Root password: wbr

Disclaimer:

This handbook is intended to introduce the basics of using Player/Stage as driver software

for the White Box Robotics 914 PC-BOT and is not meant to replace the actual Player

and Stage manuals. It is expected that you already have deep and existing knowledge of

Linux as well as knowledge of the general constraints of working inside the Linux

environment and some knowledge of working with Player/Stage and its components.

Initial Linux Application Configurations and uses

Remote Desktop – To allow for ‘over the network’ connections to the desktop of the robot.

Remote desktop control is provided through x11vnc. For detailed information see:

http://www.karlrunge.com/x11vnc/

x11vnc is run each time Gnome gdm is started (each time the PC-BOT reboots).

To accomplish this, the following line was added to /etc/X11/gdm/Init/Defaults

x11vnc -rfbauth /home/wbr/.vncpasswd -forever -bg

The program runs in the background. To kill the program, execute the following command:

$ sudo kill -9 `pidof x11vnc`

password is wbr

You can verify the program was terminated by executing:

$ ps aux|grep x11vnc

You should not see any instance of x11vnc running.

To restart the service after it has been terminated, simply execute the command below:

$ x11vnc -display :0 -rfbauth /home/wbr/.vncpasswd -auth /home/wbr/.Xauthority -forever -bg

To connect to the PC-BOT desktop remotely, use vncviewer (in Linux) or any Windows-based VNC

client. In Linux, execute the following command to connect:

$ vncviewer IP-of-PC-BOT:0 # you need to know the IP address of the PC-BOT on your local

network the password has been set to ‘whitebox’. See the x11vnc link above for details on setting the

password. To exit vncviewer, hit Ctrl-C in the terminal window or click X in the vncviewer window.

If using Windows, a good VNC Viewer to use is Real VNC: http://www.realvnc.com/

If using Linux (Windows is also supported), then you can use: http://www.tightvnc.com/

All VNC applications are supported and often a VNC viewer is already installed in your Linux OS.

Player Server – Running in the Background at Start-up

The Player server is started in the background at startup. To accomplish this, the following lines were

added to /etc/rc.local

if [ -x /usr/local/bin/player ]; then

echo "*********** Trying to run player **********"

/usr/local/bin/player /home/wbr/wbr914.cfg &

To verify it is running execute:

$ ps aux|grep player

You should see the instance of player running. Since it is running in the background, the only way to

terminate the service is by executing:

$ sudo kill -9 `pidof player`

password is wbr

To verify the service has been terminated, type the following command:

$ ps aux|grep player

There are two ways to restart the server: 1. Re-running the rc.local script which will run the server in

the background; 2. Opening a new terminal window and manually starting player.

For option 1: execute: $ sudo /etc/rc.local # press enter after you see: Listening on ports: 6665 and

player will be running in the background.

For option 2: open a new terminal window and execute: $ player /home/wbr/wbr914.cfg

To close this instance of player, press Ctrl-C in the terminal window.

Player/Stage Software Introduction

Player

Player is a network server for robot control. Installed on your robot, Player provides an elegant and

simple interface to the robot's sensors and actuators over IP networks. The client program, potentially

loaded on a remote client-computer talks to Player via a TCP socket, reading data from sensors,

writing commands to actuators, and configuring devices on the fly. It is officially described as a server

running on a robot providing access to hardware and sensors to remote programs.

How Player works

The Player server software provides an abstract interface to multiple robotic devices, including mobile

robot bases, sensors, etc as well as your 914 PC-BOT. Player communicates with these specific

devices using individual device drivers, but provides to its client-side a standard generic device

interface. For example, Player may use SICK LMS-200 and Pioneer drivers, but simply provides to

clients "laser" and "position" ("position" is a movable mobile robot base), "sonar", etc. interfaces. This

allows clients to be portable to other robots.

The readers should note: All three programs, Player, Stage and Gazebo, have the same interface so programs

used in either of the simulation programs can be used unchanged on the robots. They are designed to work

together and provide distinct features.

The most common way to use Player is to run the player server on your robot, then access your robot's

devices with a client program running on a desktop or laptop computer.

Robot Operation

To access a robot, you need to write (or edit) a Player configuration file, (usually with the

extension .cfg) that points at the driver(s) software required to control your robot. This links Player,

through the device driver and configures the hardware to the Player software. The job of this

configuration file is to map the physical devices on the robot to the virtual Player devices (so that

is shows and can be controlled inside the simulated environment).

We provide the following for the default configuration 914 PC-BOT at this location:

/home/wbr/wbr914.cfg

The wbr914 driver provides the following device interfaces:

position2d

This interface returns position data, and accepts velocity commands.

This interface returns the IR range data.

aio

This interface returns the analog input data from the optional 2nd I/O board.

dio

This interface returns the digital input information and allows control of the digital outputs on all

installed White Box Robotics I/O boards. The first I/O board supplies 8 digital inputs and outputs and

the optional second I/O board supplies an additional 8 digital inputs and outputs.

Camera

Camera imagery.

Adding more sensors to the physical robot

As you add more sensors to the physical robot, you will need to create additional driver files to

communicate with the hardware and return the sensor readings.

A number of drivers have already been written for the most popular sensors and are included in Player

by default. (Here is a listing of the available drivers: http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/doc/Player-

2.0.0/player/group__drivers.html) All related configuration options can be found there. To use those

devices simply add them to the .cfg file to allow the robot to access the sensors.

Examples:

Hokuyo URG scanning laser range-finder

Text to add to your robot .cfg file

driver

(

name "urglaser"

provides ["laser:0"]

port "/dev/ttyACM0"

)

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