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Instructing the bot to move around dynamically — Parallax Forums

Instructing the bot to move around dynamically

execatexecat Posts: 3
edited 2012-08-05 11:08 in Robotics
Hi,

I am using Boe Bot in my college for robotics practicals, and am enjoying working with it.

I came across an idea where, I mount a sensor (like Kinect) on top of the Boe Bot and compute the status of the bot on a laptop (which is interfaced with the Kinect through USB through OpenKinect drivers). (Cakewalk till here)

Then, I want to direct my bot to move accordingly, after computing the instructions to be carried out next, again, through USB. (Would probably happen using higher level languages like Octave) The obvious obstacle in doing this is that the Boe Bot controller only reads from memory that has been already written on in the read mode, before the bot has actually begun working.

Is there a way around this, or is instructing the bot to dynamically move around through USB completely impossible?

EDIT: Thanks!

Comments

  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2012-08-04 03:08
    If I understand you, you want to remotely control the Boe bot using the USB port to transmit messages. First off, yes this is possible and several remote controlled Boe bot projects have been done. For example, here's one using a bluetooth serial port to control via Microsoft Robotics Studio

    http://www.devx.com/dotnet/Article/33216

    One challenge is controlling the servos and doing serial I/O. It can be done, but a servo pal makes life easier.
  • execatexecat Posts: 3
    edited 2012-08-04 05:51
    This is *exactly* what I want to do, but more examples on Linux based operating systems (using Python or some other library, GUI not important) or platform independent languages/libraries would be even more awesome, since I am not running Windows.

    As I said, the Bluetooth interfacing is no big deal, it could be USB as well.

    I haven't had problems with USB or RS-232 ports, but I was just pre-programming the bot. If there's a concern about speed when controlling the bot dynamically as I mentioned, I am ready to switch to RS-232 too.

    Thanks for the reply. Want to mark this thread 'almost solved', but that's not an option ;)
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2012-08-04 06:50
    I started a project to program a Boe Bot in Python on a PC using the MS Robotics Studio PBasic driver on the Boe bot. You can reuse the PBasic code essentially as is. The Python side required opening a serial port and send the right bytes over the wire. I used Active State Python which has support for PC COM ports. It looked really doable with a few hours of fiddling with the protocol.

    Unfortunately my work got insane around May and I program for a living. As a result, I have not wanted to fiddle off hours.
  • Martin_HMartin_H Posts: 4,051
    edited 2012-08-04 08:22
    Here's the thread where I started discussing the concept.

    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?139578-Python-and-BoeBotControlForMsrsCtp2
  • execatexecat Posts: 3
    edited 2012-08-04 20:42
    Cool enough for Python, but not language independent. Nevermind. Marked solved.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,255
    edited 2012-08-05 11:08
    execat wrote: »
    Nevermind. Marked solved.

    @execat: Welcome to the forum and where are your manners? You used the "N" word! "Nevermind" is a rude way to reply to Martin_H, who took the time to reply three times in an effort to help you. Please refrain in future posts.
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