Programmer’s Manual
Communication with the robot through the USB port
The robot has a USB port next to the power jack at the rear of the robot. You will need a USB 5-pin mini
cable to connect to the robot. You will also need to install a device driver to talk with the robot. The best
way to install the device driver is to install it from the
Software Update Page
.
Communication to a robot through a terminal emulator
Commands can be sent to a real robot via a terminal emulator. The robot is running an API command
interpreter on the USB port. Connection to the robot is made through a USB cable. The driver converts the
USB port connection to a Com port connection. This allows you to use any terminal emulator program
(such as Hyperterm or TeraTerm) to communicate with the robot. Use the following procedure:
1. Turn on the robot and connect the USB 5 pin mini cable between your computer and your robot.
2. Bring up the Terminal Emulator program.
3. Find the COM port that the robot is connected to. This is usually the last one on the list. The
communication parameters (Baud, start/stop bits, parity, etc.) are unimportant. They apply only to a real
COM port.
4. Type GetVersion. If you are connected to the robot, then it will echo back each character that you type.
Hit the enter key. The robot will now process the command and supply a response.
5. Now type help to get a list of available commands.
Command Syntax
Commands are matched with a case insensitive method. Partial word match is supported. You only need to
type in enough letters of the command to make it unique. Commands have a flexible format. In the strictly
non-sequenced format, the syntax consists of only 3 elements:
Cmd – This is the command name.
Flag – Flags are always initialized to zero. Specifying a flag on the command line sets the flag to one.
ParamName ParamValue – The ParamName specifies what parameter the next argument (ParamValue) is.
Flags and Param(Name/Value) pairs can be specified on the command line in any order. All Flags and
ParamNames are matched with a case insensitve method. Partial word match is supported. You only need to
type in enough letters of the Flag or ParamName to make it unique. In a less verbose format, the user can
omit the ParamName from the Param(Name/Value) pairs. However, this format requires that all
ParamValues are specified in the correct sequence. This sequence is the sequence shown in the Usage
command. Unnamed ParamValues are assigned in sequence to the earliest ParamName in the sequence that
does not already have a value assigned.
Response Syntax
All responses will have a control-Z (^Z) at the end of the response string. Command responses are in the
form of CSV spread sheets. E.G. GetVersion returns:
Component,Major,Minor,Build
Product Model,XV-11,,
Serial Number,AAAnnnnnAA,0000000,D
Software,6,1,13328
LDS Software,V1.0.0,,
LDS Serial,XXX-YYY,,
MainBoard Vendor ID,1,,
