Technical Report
Contents
1. Help ay Definition Punctian syAlgn lt x 0 y 2 gt Reference Punc Ssoftvsre cowponent for refererme xro pefinition runction wyrunc Porta In int 1011 Ports cut int cO 1 flesat l l Figure 5 SynDEX CAD design session The example application implements a short sequence read an analog port on the control board P0 that performs the analog to digital convertion e use the result of the conversion 32 bit integer as input for the func function running in control board P0 The func function calls a separately compiled C function and produces two values a 32 bit integer passed through output 00 and a floating point value passed through output 01 e send these two values through the CAN bus to the computer PC for being displayed The func function is a function of type myFunc The myFunc macro is defined by the user in the file test m4x Editing this file returns the following contents define 1 define NOTRACEDEF define ECP IRQ 0x5 define CAN speed_ 800Kbps IPP Hurray Research Group 10 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach define loop period 10000000 Robosoft MPC555 boards Serial Number used by the download process define PO CANID 0x4000 PP Fix IT timer period to 156 15625 10ms2. g gt R 7 2 returns the distances measured by the ultrasonic sensors A full list of control commands is available in the Robuter technical documentation Robuter web Minicom settings are 115200 8N2 IPP Hurray Research Group i 13 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach 6 Conclusion future works This Technical Report gives an overview of the current hardware and software architecture of the Robuter and also provides some practical issues for its use showing examples and pointing directions that enable further development Since the robot can be seen as a mean to achieve some task as a tool it can be also seen as an end in the development of new applications improving its characteristics It is shown in this report that the Robuter can be controlled in three ways via joystick or via software locally or remotely In order to give the Robuter the ability to behave autonomously some improvements have to be done namely the development and application of some technologies such as the ones described next A remote real time monitor that gets and analyzes the state of the relevant robot variables position attitude sensors readings Allowing also the building of an environment map as the robot moves in the environment Installation of one or two digital cameras and development of a video streaming applicati
3. has to be inserted This is done by adding the following line to the local User mk myLib 555 myLib c In fact this rule only sets a dependency between myLib 555 and myLib c This means that for compiling myLib c an implicit rule will be applied This implicit rule corresponds to the one already defined by the mpc555 m4m SynDEx kernel macros Any additional specific need for compilation should be added like follows IPP Hurray Research Group 11 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach myLib 555 myLib c crossgcc bin ppc elf32 gcec o myLib 555 mcpu powerpc mhard float I crossgcec fdlibm 02 c myLib c The application can be launched by executing the make command from the command prompt line myLib c will be automatically compiled before producing PO 5 Getting started guide 5 1 Starting and shutting down There are two ways of getting the Robuter started locally or remotely Locally i e on the Robuter itself A monitor has to be plugged in the appropriate VGA socket on the on board embedded computer In this case a keyboard and a mouse have also to be plugged using a PS 2 splitter connector Nevertheless as plugging some extra hardware on the Robuter is not a practical solution a better solution arises plugging only a network cable on the RJ45 ethernet netw
4. of logical input or output signals including optical encoder inputs can be used for both data acquisition and device control The available outputs can be either analog or PWM to control linear or pulse width modulation amplifiers or digital to control relays or visualization systems Figure 4 shows a picture of the RSMPC555 control board and its daughter card Figure 4 RSMPC555 control board and Daughter card 3 3 The embedded PC The embedded computer on board of the Robuter is a Pentium4 class computer In fact it is a Single Board Computer with PSB form factor 185 01mm x 121 41mm The whole computer is allocated in a shoe box style casing located under the top panel This onboard computer features the following main characteristics CPU Pentium4 2 4GHz Bus PCI 33MHz PC 104 PLUS RAM 512MB HDD 4GB Hitachi Microdrive Interfaces ATA 100 IDE FDD CompactFLASH http www freescale com IPP Hurray Research Group 7 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Ports Ethernet IEEE802 3u 1OBASE T 100BASE TX 2 x USB 2 0 IrDA LPT EPP ECP SPP modes COMI RS 232 COM2 RS 232 RS 422 RS 485 4 bits Digital I O 2x CAN ports Peripherals Keyboard Mouse PS 2 connector Video VGA controller AGP2 0 4x 3D graphic engine 8MBram 2048x1536x16 other features Integrated real time clock
5. refer to 555 m4x comments dnl define PITCOUNTER 1562 myFunc define myFunc ifelse dnl MGC LOOP Ceall void myCall int 1 int 2 float 3 display define display ifelse MGC LOOP dnl int f 0 f int 1 2 rt_printk Sum of input values is 5d n fj pee divert dnl The user macro myFunc is defined as a call to the myCall function 555macros The myCall function is declared in the local file myLib c This function is scripted as follows include fdlibm h void myCall int in int iout float fout double f 0 75 iout int 100 sin f fout float sin in 100 The next step is to add the appropriate makefile rules to the local GNUmakefile and User mk in order to automatically launch muLib c compilation myLib c should be compiled to produce an object file named myLib 555 Hence called functions will be copied from myLib 555 and included into PO operator object file At final compilation step the composed PO operator object file will be linked to produce the PowerPC ELF 32 bit executable binary To do so it is necessary to declare the object file myLib 555 as a valid library for the PO operator This is done by setting the following variable into the local GNUmakefile PO libs myLib 555 Then the makefile rule needed for producing myLib 555
6. the application gt make The platform is now ready to be operated by a joystick Note that commands issued from the joystick are only executed if the joystick button is pressed To terminate this application gt make stop IPP Hurray Research Group 12 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Then turning off the Robuter is possible after a proper Linux machine shut down procedure as stated earlier 5 3 Software control commands When the Robuter is controlled by an application software control it can be considered that it behaves autonomously or not depending on the type of application If the robot does not need any specific external command to navigate from one point to another except for the go command then he behaves autonomously We address next how the Robuter can be remotely controlled where direct command instructions are sent to the robot via serial communication This type of communication can be achieved on board of the robot i e the embedded PC sends commands to the running application this could be interprocess communication between a navigation application and the control application Or an application on a remote host sending commands via a wireless media In order to control the robot via command instructions the same steps presented in section 5 1 must be executed except for the
7. 6 Further information about the Robuter is actually available via Internet at the following address http 212 208 189 50 PROJECTS ROBUTER_RECT Project User_Information html However since the above address is not a property of the IPP Hurray Research Group a dedicated site for the Hurray s Robuter is under development and will be hosted by the IPP Hurray Research Group webserver 2 Robuter generalities 2 1 General description The Robuter Figure 1 is a rectangular non holonomic robotic mobile platform developed by the french company Robosoft The locomotion of this robot is performed via the control of two independent DC motors coupled to each drive wheel Two additional caster wheels provide the necessary base on the floor The Robuter is controlled by an MPC555 micro controller allowing manual driving with a Joystick or autonomous motion controlled by a Single Board Computer that is located inside the robot Besides this facility it is also possible to remotely control that robot via a wireless radio link IPP Hurray Research Group 3 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Length 102 5 cm Width 68 0 cm Height 44 0 cm Weight 150 kg Payload 120 kg Max speed 1 0 m s Figure 1 Robuter Mobile Platform Basically the Robuter is equiped with the following items 2 x 300W DC motors with gear boxes and bra
8. IPP HURRAY d Wwww hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform a Hands On Approach Emmanuel Lomba Mario Alves TR 051103 Version 1 0 Date 29 November 2005 Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Emmanuel LOMBA Mario ALVES IPP HURRAY Polytechnic Institute of Porto ISEP IPP Rua Dr Ant nio Bernardino de Almeida 431 4200 072 Porto Portugal Email ecl mjf isep ipp pt Webpage http www isep ipp pt Abstract The Robuter is a robotic mobile platform that is located in the Hands On Laboratory of the IPP Hurray Research Group at the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto Recently the Robuter was subject of an upgrading process addressing two essential areas the Hardware Architecture and the Software Architecture This upgrade in process was triggered due to technical problems on board of the robot and also to the fact that the hardware software architecture has become obsolete This Technical Report overviews the most important aspects of the new Hardware and Software Architectures of the Robuter This document also presents a first approach on the first steps towards the use of the Robuter platform and provides some hints on future work that m
9. _plus content_mic plus technisch darstellung3 3 htm IPP Hurray Research Group 8 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach 4 Software Architecture 4 1 Operative System Robuter s embedded PC runs Linux RedHat 9 0 Operating System This operativing system has the avantages of being royalty free open sourced licensed under the GPL General Public License being very well documented and featuring all necessary tools for development onboard of the Robuter itself or remotely via Ethernet Real Time requirements can be fulfilled by loading into the Linux kernel some modules that provide real time extentions and capabilities These modules are from the RTAI Real Time Application Interface project from the Department of Aerospace Engineering of Politecnico di Milano DIAPM 4 2 Development tool The development of applications for the Robuter is based on the Robosoft Development Toolchain Pomiers 2004 This development is based on the SynDEx CAD environment SynDEx is a system level CAD software based on the Algorithm Architecture Adequation SynDEx_UM methodology for rapid prototyping and optimizing the implementation of distributed real time embedded applications onto multi component architectures currently x86 and MPCS555 based architecture Figure 4 below depicts the full design sequence of the SynDEx executive
10. ay be carried out using this mobile platform Document history Version Content By Date 0 1 First draft ECL 18 10 2005 1 0 First release ECL MJF 29 11 2005 IPP Hurray Research Group www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Table of contents TE MRR CGI gi T 2a cud wc A A L E E E E E A O A EN EE AE 3 2 R uter genera Mes aosda a Eiaa aaa i S 3 2I General desci Oe na cae chee seat heen recede ta 3 iM TUM A OA T Sais E es ensues A A A cian Salaladusd nun E EE E E caeey 5 d OAT EA CMEC OU Bis cccsnsaa aa 9 ENEE e AAA E EE A E A AA ert EA E E A E eres EE AEA A EN E E A EEN 9 42 Development tol asa a a 9 A OVDE nE dE i se cnedancesassolauiacasseieasdiencetdsaieediaedisauve hectiaetecieaabte iesoe aices acest uvsanegs 10 G Conclusion ture Work Sassone EE 14 ROTOR NC OS ann N Ea 14 IPP Hurray Research Group 2 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach 1 Introduction The Robuter is a robotic mobile platform that is located in the Hands On Laboratory of the IPP Hurray Research Group at the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto Recently the Robuter was subject of an upgrading process addressing two essential areas the Har
11. dware Architecture and the Software Architecture This upgrade in process was triggered due to technical problems on board of the robot and also to the fact that the hardware software architecture has become obsolete In order to enable a practical use of the Robuter mobile platform referred as Robuter in the remain of this Technical Report a sort of getting started guide is mandatory Thus this document provides the most relevant technical information the Robuter hardware and software achitecture This Technical Report starts by presenting some general characterisitcs of the Robuter in Section 2 Then Section 3 introduces the physical hardware architecture of the robot The main hardware components are explained in a what and in a what for manners Some relevant technical characteristics are also included in order to allow the expanding of the functionality of the current Robuter Section 4 describes the logical software architecture of the Robuter namely how the control software is organized and how the user can actually use the robot Also an application development example is presented based on the manufacturer s Robosoft documentation Section 5 gives a first practical approach to the Robuter with a simple demonstration on how to put the whole system running and how to control it via a Joystick or via commands sent throught a serial connection Finally some sugestions on future work are presented on Section
12. e between 35cm and 5 meters thus having a blind zone up to 35cm The side sensors are of type Microsonic MIC130 with a detection range between 20cm and 2 meters having a blind zone up to 20cm These sensors are ultrasonic ranging sonars with an analog signal output that is a function of the distance between the top of the sensor and the first detected obstacle Each sensor is connected to a separate analog input of the RSMPC555 board The dead reckoning sensors are quadrature incremental encoders mounted on each drive motor axis These sensors are connected to the appropriate digital inputs of the control board These sensors are used for calculating the robot s position and for wheel velocity measurement Other sensors can be added to the Robuter since its control board has several available analog and digital inputs Also intelligent sensor modules can be added to the robot as it provides several communication interfaces such as RS232 USB CAN and Ethernet 3 5 The actuators The only actuators included in the Robuter are the two drive motors mounted to each main drive wheel and the electro mechanical brakes However the Robuter s control board allows the control of two other axis actuators and several ON OFF type ones that can be plugged into its digital outputs http www microsonic de englisch content_produkte mic_plus content_mic plus technisch darstellung4 3 htm http www microsonic de englisch content_produkte mic
13. intel 845GV chipset Although this computer is a main hardware part in the robot it has so far a minimal role in the control of the Robuter Currently this computer is used to load the executable control application into the control board via CAN bus and to communicate with it via serial RS232 link The computer can however be used to develop and run higher level applications and to communicate via different types of link other than CAN or RS232 provided on the control board e g WiFi Additionaly the fact that the computer is mounted inside the robot enables a lot of expansion and enhancement opportunities 3 4 The sensors Actually the Robuter is equiped with two kinds of sensors The first kind is related to the emergency STOP button this one has top priority This button stops the robot as it resets the control board This button can only be operated by human action Also the joystick belongs to this first category of sensors as it also requires human action The other sensor group includes all sensors that are related to the robot navigation In this group the Robuter has ranging and dead reckoning sensors The Robuter s ranging sensors are of two types disposed as showed previously on this document in Figure 2 Resuming there is one medium range sensor on each front and back panels and two short range sensors on each side of the robot The front and rear panels sensors are of type Microsonic MIC340 with a detection rang
14. kes 2 x incremental encoders 2 x servo amplifiers 2 x axes interface between motors and boards 4 x short range ultrasonic sonars MIC130 2 x medium range ultrasonic sonars MIC340 1 x RSMPC555 control board dedicated to multi axis control 1 x Pentium4 class embedded computer 1 x Joystick 2 axis for manual operation with security button The onboard computer features the Linux Operating System implementing Real Time operation using the Real Time Application Interface RTAI Figure 2 ilustrates some of the main components of the Robuter MEDIUM RANGE MIC340 i U S SONAR p7 tetttt tee eeee ee wrt tttteeeeeesslliliiteres 36 500em gre SHORT RANGE O AMN U S SONAR f Batteries i EMBEDDED SINGLE 20 200em Q BOARD COMPUTER besseceesseeceenseeceenseeecensed iPentium4 2 4GHz 2 CAN Ethernet RS232 ee 7 USB Linux RTAI MIC130 ROBUTER ii LI RSMPC555 J STOP E 7 A A ree Figure 2 Main components of the Robuter http www rtai org IPP Hurray Research Group 4 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach Besides a medium range ultrasonic sonar MIC340 and an emergency STOP button the rear panel features a battery level indicator and a chronograph hour counting Also this same panel presents the socket for the control joystick plug The Rob
15. last one shutting down Therefore assuming the Robuter Linux machine is running in text mode we should gt login guest gt password guest0 gt cd syndex current last appsv6 4190 RobuTERRect Porto V18 push and release th mergency STOP button gt make Then in a second terminal CTRL ALT F2 the minicom application will be used to communicate with the running control application gt login guest gt password guesto0 gt minicom in the minicom window gt CTRL A and SHITF A activates line feed gt CTRL A and SHIFT E activates the Echo After this minicom terminal startup and configuration the first command to be sent to the control level is to switch the control to the serial line code 1 and mode 1 oR Ll a Then the Robuter will accept commands from the serial line of the control board For example to perform a translation of 4000 enconder ticks 753mm at a speed of 50 encoder ticks per 10ms we should enter gt R 400 46000 50 The wheels perform a turn implementing a trapezoidal profile of velocity Returning to the joystick control mode is achieved by sending the following command gt Ri1 0 As usual to terminate this real time application after exiting minicom gt make stop on the first Linux command prompt CTRL ALT F1 This method of communicating with the robot not only allows to send commands but also to ask for systems state variables e
16. on to remotely monitor what the robot sees Development of artificial vision tools that allow the Robuter to navigate in the world avoiding obstacles and geo referencing them in an exploration map Development of vision based navigation algorithms with fusion of all available sensor data Development of an autonomous docking station and respective control application for enabling the Robuter to get its batteries charged between missions 7 References Pomiers 2004 Pomiers P Robosoft Development Toolchain Robosoft S A June 2004 555macros Pomiers P The 555 m4x and RSB m4x SynDEx Macro Executives Description of Macros for Handling RSMPC555 boards Robosoft S A August 2004 Robuter web Robuter Rectangular Base User Information Robosoft April 2005 http 212 208 189 50 PROJECTS ROBUTER_RECT Project User_Information html SynDEx IO Pomiers P The SynDEx linuxIO_ Macro An Easy C C Linux User s Application Interface Robosoft S A April 2004 SynDEx TUT Santos N et al SynDEx v TUTORIAL INRIA December 2003 SynDEx UM Forget J et al SynDEx v User Manual INRIA December 2003 SynDEx RM Sorel Y SynDEx Reference Manual INRIA Rocquencourt SynDEx_Gr Forget J SynDEx version 6 6 8 Grammar INRIA March 2004 IPP Hurray Research Group 14 www hurray isep ipp pt
17. ork plug Note even this solution which involves physical plug and unplug should be substituted by a wireless radio link connection Thus once the Robuter is turned on it will be almost ready to go just have to launch the application Whatever is the connection with the robot via extra hardware or via WiFi Ethernet connection once the Robuter is turned on and the Linux login prompt appears login and password must be provided login guest password guest0O As the Robuter can be seen as a moving computer once it is not needed anymore it should be turned off A normal Linux procedure has to be executed i e shutting down the software platform inserting the following command on the command prompt gt shutdown h now If no monitor is plugged on the Robuter there is no information on when the computer system is off So only after a while the Robuter master switch can be turned off e g 1 minute based on practical tests with local monitor 5 2 Joystick control For joystick control the example application pre installed by Robosoft can be used To do so the following procedure has to be carried out 1 Go to the application directory gt cd syndex current last appsv6 4190 RobuTERRect Porto V18 2 Push and release the emergency STOP button on the rear panel of the robot This action resets the control board Now the PC is ready to download the application to the control board 3 Compile download and start
18. s Application lt lt AP gt gt Arohiteous graph aac a Schedule diagram el i Pe ON P E Algorithme graph Exe cutives generation Kernel Kemal mpcssi im m tages mam 5 i Maka gen e Kemal Komel Specific maros mpcS55 mi CAN mi AP mx Linker saipt mpcS56 id anc ndes f f Binary Poses aa _ essere a Komol Kemal Specific maces ranes mex CAN mtx AP mex ae m eame EL 1 H Figure 4 SynDEX design sequence Shttp www rtai org http www rocq inria fr syndex IPP Hurray Research Group 9 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach SynDEx design methodology is based on some GNU development utilities macroprocessor compiler etc to produce binaries In the current case the above sequence generates the PowerPC ELF 32 bit executable applications for the MPC555 and the kernel modules for the PC running RTAI Linux 4 3 SynDEx example design When designing an application with SynDEx CAD the hardware architecture has to be specified For the Robuter the hardware architecture is composed by one MPCS555 operator named PO and a PC operator named PC Figure 5 shows a screen capture from the SynDEx CAD session featuring the sample application Pomiers 2004 P SyeOEx 646 0 tostsite _ ee File Optina Apam Architectere Constants Agequation Code
19. ture of the Robuter 3 1 Main building blocks Figure 3 shows the main physical system block diagram This diagram provides some intuition on the location of each hardware component A list of all capabilities for the current Robuter configuration is then presented Do x Right F a E Left m Encoder Encoder Signal Conditioning INH P MI INH P V M Joystick CDA COM1 CANT embedded PC ETHO COM2 CAN2 48V O USB LPT Figure 3 Robuter physical system block diagram IPP Hurray Research Group 6 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach 3 2 The RSMPC555 control board The RSMPCS55 is a stand alone high performance motion control board Together with its daughter card this controller can drive up to 4 axis robots The Robuter only uses two of these This control board uses a 32 bit PowerPC compliant microprocessor MPC555 providing high performance without sacrificing ease of use The controller main board holds the microprocessor the necessary components for one axis control user isolated input output and communication channels The piggy back style daughter card allows the extention from one axis up to four axis The PC104 like connector allows to add custom modules for future extensions additional I O RAM EEPROM A wide range
20. uter is electrically powered by four 12 V DC sealed lead batteries serially connected thus offering a DC output of 48V However some components sonars are supplied with 24 V and other components have dedicated DC DC converters in order to adjust the power supply to the apropriate levels The socket for battery charge is located below the front panel this panel as for the rear one can be lift enabling the access to the internal parts of the robot may be possible 2 2 General precautions The development of any software application can take place in the Robuter s computer via a remote session through Ethernet connection In order to save battery life this development phase should be carried out with the battery charger plugged into the appropriate socket below the front panel However when running practical tests that involve motion of the robot the battery charger plug should be previously removed from the Robuter in order to protect the charger from any current overload as for the cable itself that may not be long enough This precaution should be taken into consideration even when the Robuter is suspended on blocks Refer to the Robuter rectangular base User Information for information on how to put the Robuter on blocks IPP Hurray Research Group 5 www hurray isep ipp pt Technical Report 051103 On the Hardware and Software Architecture of the Robuter Mobile Platform A Hands On Approach 3 Physical Architec
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