13
Figure 9. Pioneer 3 bumpers and
associated STALL bits
Chapter 4
Accessories
Pioneer 3 robots have many accessory options. For convenience, we include a description of the more commonly
integrated accessories in this document. Please also refer to the detailed documents that come with the accessory.
J
OYSTICK AND
J
OYDRIVE
M
ODE
Although not all models come standard with an external joystick connector, your Pioneer 3 robot’s microcontroller has a
joystick port and ARCOS contains a
JoyDrive
server for manual operation.
Start driving your robot with a joystick any time when it is not connected with a client software program. Simply plug it
into the joystick port and press the “fire” button to engage the motors.
To drive your robot with a joystick while it is connected with an ARIA client (overrides client-based drive commands for
manual operation), you must have the client software send the ARCOS command #47 with an integer argument of one
to enable the ARCOS joystick servers. Have your client send the ARCOS
JOYDRIVE
command #47 with an integer
argument of zero to disable the joystick drive override.
The joystick’s fire button acts as the “deadman”—press it to start driving; release it to stop the robot’s motors. The
robot should drive forward and reverse, and turn left or right in response and at speeds relative to the joystick’s
position.
While driving forward, pull back on the joystick into full-reverse to decelerate faster than
normal.
When not connected with a client control program, releasing the joystick fire button stops the robot. However when
connected with a client, the client program resumes automatic operation of your robot’s drive system. So, for example,
your robot may speed up or slow down and turn, depending on the actions of your client program.
You may adjust the maximum translation and rotation speeds and even disable JoyDrive mode, through special ARCOS
FLASH configuration parameters. See Chapter 7,
Updating & Reconfiguring ARCOS
, for details.
B
UMPERS
Bump rings fore and aft provide contact sensing for when other sensing has failed to detect an obstacle. The accessory
rings also are segmented for contact positioning.
Electronically and programmatically, the bumpers trigger digital events which are reflected in the
STALL
values of the
standard server-information packet that ARCOS automatically sends to a connected client. Your client also may request
a special
IOpac
server information packet that contains additional, more-detailed bumper, stall, and other I/O related
information.
Your robot may not move if you unplug one or both
bumpers.
ARCOS itself monitors and responds to protection triggers. For
example, ARCOS’
bumpStall
server triggers a stall in the robot
whenever one or more bumper segments get triggered while the robot
is moving in the same direction (front forward or rear reverse). Please
consult the
Appendix A
for interface details and the chapters on
ARCOS, particularly the section which describes the contents of the
IOpac
server information packet, later in this manual for configuration
and programming details.