Graphical Interface

Users Instructions

Follow instructions below in order to run the MiRo Graphical Interface on your Ubuntu system:

Installation

This installation assumes the following settings:

• Using an Ubuntu platform to run the graphical interface and the ROS core.
• Platform IP address: 193.168.0.100
• MiRo robot IP address: 193.168.0.1
• MiRo robot root password: 1234
• MDK path: ~/mdk

1. Installing ROS:

To run the graphical interface, the first step is to install the ROS. Detailed instructions are provided in (at least the ROS core needs to be installed):

http://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Installation

2. Installing MDK

Install the latest version of MDK on ~/mdk

3. Configure installation for use with MIRO:

Add the following lines to the file ~/.bashrc, as preferred, on your workstation.

# configuration
export MIRO_PATH_MDK=~/mdk
export ROS_IP=193.168.0.100
export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311

# usual ROS setup
source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash

# make our custom messages available to ROS/python
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$MIRO_PATH_MDK/share:$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH
export PYTHONPATH=$MIRO_PATH_MDK/share:$PYTHONPATH

You can modify the ~/.bashrc file by:

sudo nano ~/.bashrc

Copy and paste the lines above and press ctrl+x and then confirm the modifications by pressing y.

4. Gazebo installation:

Although this is not required, you can install the Gazebo simulator by:

$ sudo apt-get install gazebo7 libgazebo7-dev

Then configure installation for use with MIRO by adding the following lines to the file ~/.bashrc, as preferred, on your workstation.

# usual Gazebo setup
source /usr/share/gazebo/setup.sh

# announce MIRO resources to Gazebo
export GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH=$MIRO_PATH_MDK/share:${GAZEBO_RESOURCE_PATH}

5. Setting up the P3 on your MiRo:

MIRO: Maintenance

1. Format the SD card
2. Run:

$ cd ~/mdk/bin/deb64
$ sudo ./program_P3.sh /dev/sdb --pass=1234 --network=SSID/PASSWORD --masteraddr=193.168.0.100

6. Setting up P2:

$ ssh 193.168.0.1

$ cd ~/mdk/bin/am335x
$ ./program_P2.sh main

7. Downloading the Graphical Interface:

If Git is not installed, you first need to install it by:

sudo apt-get install git

The most current version of the graphical interface can be downloaded by typing into the terminal:

cd
git clone https://github.com/hamidehkerdegari/graphical_interface.git --origin upstream

To get updates and bug fixes, you can go to the graphical interface directory,

cd ~/graphical_interface

and type in:

git pull

If "git pull" prints out a message telling it cannot pull the remote changes because you have changed files locally, you may have to commit locally and merge your changes, or stash them temporarily and then apply back the stash; for that, we recommend that you read about how Git works.

Running the graphical interface

Now that everything is installed, you can run the graphical interface by first opening a new terminal and run the ROS core:

roscore

Open a second terminal and run the following to connect to the MiRo (with the address of 193.168.0.1):

ssh [email protected]

Enter MiRo password:

1234
root@miro:~>

Then run:

run_bridge_ros.sh

Open a third terminal and navigate to the graphical interface directory:

cd ~/graphical_interface/ui/

and run the graphical interface with the following command (for the robot rob01):

./gi_run.py robot=rob01

the graphical interface will be visualized on the desktop.

Further information:

You can use some shortcuts on the graphical interface:

• Ctrl+F: For full screening the interface
• Ctrl+W: For closing the interface
• Ctrl+S: For saving the interface as a picture

Developers Instructions

In general, the graphical interface application has been developed using Matplotlib which is a Python 2D plotting library. We believe that the Matplotlib can provide high flexibility in terms of designing a nice graphics and animation.

The basic approach in developing this interface is that all static parts of each window of the interface is made in the OpenOffice Impress and saved as a picture. The picture is then opened as an image plot in the application. All the dynamic part of the interface are then added as overlay graphs on top of the main image. An "add_subplot()" function implemented which can add an overlay graph with a specified dimensions and position. The size and dimensions are all relative to the main parent image plot so in case of resizing the main window, all components will be in their correct positions.

After initialization of each window and its graphs, an update function is being called with a specified update rate to refresh the data of the graph with the most recent data received from the robot.

The Python scripts provide with adequate comments to explain each component which is useful for modifications and further developments.