Well Beagle_bot has sort off languished a bit in the last year the beagle board has been the main draw back, its very slow. I swapped it out for a note book the configuring took only 2 days. I now have a working robot running ROS hydro the navigation stack works, the ps3 joystick wont work in remote mode due to a bug in ubuntu 12.4 but works in USB mode. The kinect is fitted but not tested, the behaviour engine works the patrol function works in simulation battery monitoring and recharge work but auto dock is not fitted yet
The kinect now works in both point clouds and laser scan mode using
you have to launch the kinect with depth registration turned off for the laser scanner to work, the ps3 joystick wont work using sixaxis but will work with sixadd
Sunday 7 September 2014
Wednesday 3 July 2013
Web Interface
We have the web interface running and can control Beagle_bot with a web browser
the video feed is a bit slow. Also added the head with a long neck the printer failed before it finished so it looks a bit ratty
the video feed is a bit slow. Also added the head with a long neck the printer failed before it finished so it looks a bit ratty
Wednesday 8 May 2013
Update
Well it's been along time since the last update I have been side tracked on other projects
and not had much time for Qbot. After sorting out the 3D printer I changed the wheel mounts to a printed structure and added a 3:1 gearing to the drive wheels using herringbone gears. The printer also allows me to make better brackets and mounts. Over the past 12 months I started to make my own PCB,s (see Robbie the robot) to try and clear up the rats nest of wiring which was a major cause of unreliability. the biggest improvement was in the design of the head and the neck while not finished yet it makes the robot look better.
On the software side I started with a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.4 from Ubuntu's site this time the install worked as expected although the stock desktop is still slow the webcam a PS3 eye works
but at 26 FPS. Next was a install of ROS I used the Groovy dist because it had binary packages to install. My biggest problem is catkin and the changes to the package/stacks what i was used to doesn't work anymore so i have to relearn the new ways.
The plan for development is set up the web server with Rosbridge with the Pi_remote package
then move on to robot control through the web server. The web server and rosbridge are working the mjepg server is not (but i have to load the catkin version not the rosbuild version)
and not had much time for Qbot. After sorting out the 3D printer I changed the wheel mounts to a printed structure and added a 3:1 gearing to the drive wheels using herringbone gears. The printer also allows me to make better brackets and mounts. Over the past 12 months I started to make my own PCB,s (see Robbie the robot) to try and clear up the rats nest of wiring which was a major cause of unreliability. the biggest improvement was in the design of the head and the neck while not finished yet it makes the robot look better.
On the software side I started with a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.4 from Ubuntu's site this time the install worked as expected although the stock desktop is still slow the webcam a PS3 eye works
but at 26 FPS. Next was a install of ROS I used the Groovy dist because it had binary packages to install. My biggest problem is catkin and the changes to the package/stacks what i was used to doesn't work anymore so i have to relearn the new ways.
The plan for development is set up the web server with Rosbridge with the Pi_remote package
then move on to robot control through the web server. The web server and rosbridge are working the mjepg server is not (but i have to load the catkin version not the rosbuild version)
Sunday 24 June 2012
Ubuntu 12.4
After a few weeks of no time and frustration with wireless not working and slow overall performance. I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.4 and using the LXDE desktop
the speed and usability improved wireless works even in headless mode. I then did a source install of ROS fuetre the only change i had to make was remove the j8 from the make command. part 2 of the install kept failing with dependence issues but using the new rosdep install <name> helped resolve most errors. I have a issue with dummy threads error but it appears to be only a slight inconvenience. The main stumbling block is yaml-cpp is required but the source install i did is not recognized so navigation wont install at the moment. But at least i can drive the Qbot around using the arbotix controller and the turtlebot joy stick works. sound is not working and the web cam under cheese only shows a blank screen. Overall not a bad result for the weekend
Peter
the speed and usability improved wireless works even in headless mode. I then did a source install of ROS fuetre the only change i had to make was remove the j8 from the make command. part 2 of the install kept failing with dependence issues but using the new rosdep install <name> helped resolve most errors. I have a issue with dummy threads error but it appears to be only a slight inconvenience. The main stumbling block is yaml-cpp is required but the source install i did is not recognized so navigation wont install at the moment. But at least i can drive the Qbot around using the arbotix controller and the turtlebot joy stick works. sound is not working and the web cam under cheese only shows a blank screen. Overall not a bad result for the weekend
Peter
Sunday 13 May 2012
Progress Update
The last ROS install and Ubuntu 11.10 was very slow and unworkable after a fresh install and running ROS Fuerte with no GUI installed at all its runs much faster the only problem is the usb wi fi is not working. After a reading a few blogs and experience with network usage we chose to install a wireless hub and run Qbot on his own network. This has solved a few problems ROS has to be installed from source so the extra speed is welcome at the moment we came run the arbotix and control from cmd_vel and the controllrGUI from a remote computer. We have added a Xbox wireless controller the ROS joystick node is still causing a problem.
On the hardware front we added a head and stereo cameras and changed the layout to make it smaller the wireless hub run of the 5 volt supply we need to change the reg to a switching type with at least 3 amps the servos run on 9 volts to keep the servos cool .later we will switch to 12 volt for the higher torque
On the hardware front we added a head and stereo cameras and changed the layout to make it smaller the wireless hub run of the 5 volt supply we need to change the reg to a switching type with at least 3 amps the servos run on 9 volts to keep the servos cool .later we will switch to 12 volt for the higher torque
Saturday 25 February 2012
Software
The software is Ubuntu 11.10 instructions are here
The software for the arbotix is here
Installing ROS is the hard part you have to do a source install follow the instructions here select a ROS-base install.
I spent a lot of time trying to compile other features like robot_model that resulted in failure (after about 6 hours). I was able to run Roscore and the Arbotix driver on the beagleBoard and move_base and the URDF on a remote computer with Rviz and teleop or using navigation in rviz. I still need to compile UVC_cam to compile
(opencv causes errors) and install festival TTS
The software for the arbotix is here
Installing ROS is the hard part you have to do a source install follow the instructions here select a ROS-base install.
I spent a lot of time trying to compile other features like robot_model that resulted in failure (after about 6 hours). I was able to run Roscore and the Arbotix driver on the beagleBoard and move_base and the URDF on a remote computer with Rviz and teleop or using navigation in rviz. I still need to compile UVC_cam to compile
(opencv causes errors) and install festival TTS
Hardware
Qbot uses a arbotix MCU and a LN298 motor driver the motors are 100:1 gear motors with built in encoders. The arbotix also will control the dynamixel servos in the pan and tilt when finished. The BeagleBoard runs ubuntu 11.10 and ROS electric. The whole lot is powered by a 7 amp/hr SLA battery
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