Activ
Media Robotics
as a demonstration tool, but as a diagnostic one, as well, if you suspect a sensor or
effector has failed or is working poorly.
Access each ARIA demo mode by pressing its related hot-key; ‘t’, for instance, to select
teleoperation. Each mode includes onscreen instructions and may have sub-menus for
operating of the respective device.
Disconnecting
When you finish, press the
Esc
key to disconnect the ARIA client from your robot server
and exit the ARIA demonstration program. Your Performance PeopleBot should
disengage its drive motors and stop moving, and its sonar should stop firing. You may
now slide the robot’s
Main Power
switch to
OFF
.
D
EMO
T
ROUBLESHOOTING
A common mistake with Linux is not having the proper permissions on the connecting
serial port, typically
/dev/ttyS0
should be
rw
for the current user.
Make sure your Performance PeopleBot’s batteries are fully charged (battery LED green).
The robot servers shut down and won’t allow a connection at under approximately 11
volts.
The most common problems occur with the serial connection itself. If you are using the
onboard PC or radio modems, the serial connection is internal and established at the
factory; you should not have problems with those cables. Remove any serial cable that
is plugged into the User Control Panel as it may interfere with internal serial
communication.
With a serial connection through the User Control Panel, make sure to use the proper
cable: a “pass-through” one, minimally connecting pins 2, 3, and 5 of your PC’s serial
port. If you access the wrong serial port, the ARIA demonstration program will display an
error message. If the robot server isn't listening, or if the serial link is severed somewhere
between the client and server (cable loose, for instance), the client will attempt "Syncing
0" several times and fail. In that case,
RESET
the microcontroller and check your serial
connections.
If for some reason communications get severed between the ARIA client and AROS
server, but both the client and server remain active, you may revive the connection with
little effort: simply fix the connection.
Communications also will fail if the client and/or server is somehow disabled during a
session. For instance, if you inadvertently switch off the robot’s Main Power or press the
RESET
button, you must restart the connection. Turning the Main Power switch
OFF
and
then back
ON
, or pressing the
RESET
button puts the robot servers back to their wait state,
ready to accept client connections again. Restart the ARIA demo or other client
application and reconnect with the AROS servers.
SRIsim
To verify proper installation of the software, you might run the robot simulator,
SRISim
. It
is in the same directory as the ARIA demonstration program. Start
SRIsim
first, then the
ARIA
demo
program. ARIA should successfully connect with the simulator if the software
has been installed correctly.
Take note:
SRIsim
is a GUI program that graphically displays a simulated robot and its
world environment in which it operates. Accordingly, you will need to be running X-
windows (typically “startx”) and export the display under Linux to use it, or have special
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