RobotAutonomoUNLP

Initial project of an autonomous robot led by a group of students from the Real-Time Systems course at UNLP (National University of La Plata).

Overview

This project consists of a tri-wheeled robot that uses the ROS framework to process scripts and move making geometric figures with its path, also implementing a control system so the movement is smooth and syncronized.

Getting Started

• Connection Instructions
• Remote Access
• Robot Initialization
• Taking the Robot Home
• Contributing
• LICENSE

Connection Instructions

For the first iteration of the project, the robot needs to be connected to two 220V power outlets, one using the power jack that is installed on a step down transformer, the second outlet is for the Raspberry Pi 4 that uses an USB C connector.

Remote Access

Once all powered up, the robot will automatically connect to the univerity's wireless local area network. To access it the user must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.

  SSID: alumnosInfo
  Password: Informatica2019

You can now connect to the robot via ssh, for that you will need the robot ip address. We used the 3rd party mobile app Fing to recognise the Raspberry Pi device and figure out the ip address.

With both previous steps done (Connect to UNLP Informatica Wi-Fi, and knowing device ip address), you can now access remotely via ssh. On your pcs vsCode, you can use the "Connect to Host" feature. Or you can do this on your pcs terminal. In either case, we recommend open 3 terminals and connect to the robot. If using vsCode, you can connect once and then instance more terminals from within. This is for an easier robot initialization after the connection.

enter the following command:

$ ssh robotAutonomoUNLP@[IP ADDRESS]

After that you will be asked for a password, enter:

  undertaker

If its the first time you connect via ssh to the device, it will ask to trust it, please enter yes.

Robot Initialization

Once inside the robot, to start making your own code routines or sending commands you must change directory to project workspace located at:

  ~/robotAutonomoUNLP/locomotion_ws/src/locomotion_robot_pkg/src/

The 3 terminals previously asked for are one for the actual initialization (ROS Launch), one for running the robot (ROS Run), and one for an emergency stop (Emergency) in case its needed. The 3 should all be on the project's workspace

ROS Launch

To start the robot please run the command. To reduce conflicts we recommend to wait at least 15 seconds before start running the robot (ROS Run)

  $ roslaunch locomotion_robot_pkg start.launch

ROS Run

 $ rosrun locomotion_robot_pkg locomotion_receptor.py [movement] [args] 

Parameter	Description
test	Moves forward, then backwards, then turns left, then right
line {length in cm}	Moves forward the ammount of cm specified
square {side lenght in cm}	Makes a square of side specified in cm as parameter

Emergency

 $ python3 emergency_stop.py 

Taking the Robot Home

In case any of the project participants need to take the robot home, and use it in their own Wi-Fi, the netplan configuration should be changed. Please read how to change this file and how YAML files should be written on.

Contributing

Thank you for considering contributing to this robot's code repository! Here are the steps to follow for making contributions:

Step 1: Fetch and Pull from the Repository

Ensure that you have the latest changes by fetching and pulling from this repository into the robot local system.

# Fetch and pull the latest changes
git fetch origin
git pull origin master

Step 2: Changing the Remote Repository

As the code repository within the robot needs to point to a new remote repository, follow these commands to clone this repository and set up a new remote repository:

Clone this repository to your local machine

git clone https://github.com/InfinioKneza/RobotAutonomoUNLP.git

Navigate into the cloned directory

cd your-robot-repo

Create a new repository on GitHub (if not created already) and get its URL

Set the new remote URL for the repository in the robot

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/your-username/your-new-remote-repo.git

Verify the new remote URL

git remote -v

Step 3: Make Changes and Push

Make the necessary changes to the code within the robot and commit the changes using Git. Push the changes to the new remote repository:

# Add your changes
git add .

# Commit the changes
git commit -m "Describe your changes here"

# Push the changes to the new remote repository
git push origin master

LICENSE

MIT License