Install Batteries, Client-Server Communications

Quick Start

Install Batteries

Out of the box, your ActivMedia robot comes with its batteries fully charged, although shipped separately, unless you have the automated docking/charging system. For most models, slide one or up to three batteries into robot’s battery box through the back door. Balance them: one in the center; if two, then one on each side.

Client-Server Communications

Your robot requires a serial communication link with a client PC for operation. The serial link may be:

A tether cable from the robot’s 9-pin serial connector on the User Control Panel to a computer

A piggyback laptop cabled to the User Control Panel Serial Ethernet

Radio Modem

An integrated onboard PC wired internally for direct onboard control

STARTING UP CLIENT AND SERVER

We recommend that you first test your robot and are confident of its operation before putting it together with and controlling it from the ARIA demonstration client.

Drive Self-Test

Position your ActivMedia robot on the floor or ground in an open space, or up on blocks if you have attachments to the Computer Control Panel. Slide the Main Power switch to ON. You should hear an audible beep, and the Power light and Battery light should glow while the Status light blinks rhythmically on the User Control Panel. The same AROS initialization sequence also occurs whenever you press the red RESET button.

Now press the white MOTORS button twice to engage the motor’s self-test. If your robot is working properly, it should move or rotate the wheels in four brief, but distinctive turns, forward and back, left and right. If not, please contact support@activmedia.com for assistance.

Press the red RESET button to prepare for the client connection.

Client Server Connection

ARIA’s examples are text-based “terminal” applications that do not include a GUI, so its programs do not require X-Windows over Linux or special software on a remote PC client—a simple telnet session will do the trick.

First, please note well that you cannot connect with and control your ActivMedia robot through its controller directly from a remote client over the network without special hardware (new radio Ethernet-to-serial device) or, alternatively, special software that runs on the onboard computer and converts IP packets into serial data.12 Otherwise, you must run the client software on the robot’s PC or on a PC that is connected to the robot’s controller HOST serial port. You may, of course, export the controls and display over the network from X-windows or with special Windows software, such as VNCserver.

To start the ARIA client demonstration program and connect with the robot, we presume that you have completed the preparatory stages of this chapter by installing ARIA (as

12Look in the ARIA/examples directory for a program called ipthru. It converts IP to serial and back again for remote-control clients connected through the onboard PC.