The Linuxbot Support page
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This web page is for users or
programmers of the IAS laboratory Linuxbot robots (and their variants). From
here you can download Linuxbot manuals and documentation, the Linuxbot
library and example source code, and papers about the Linuxbot. For a
general description of the Linuxbot go to the
Linuxbot home page. Please report any errors or inaccuracies in any of the material downloadable from here to me, Alan Winfield, so that I can amend and update accordingly. Let me know also if you have developed code or documentation for the Linuxbot and would like to make this freely available via this web page. |
Linuxbot Documentation:
| The Linuxbot Quickstart Guide This is a concise (three page) guide to safely powering up, running and shutting down a Linuxbot. YOU MUST READ THIS before you use a Linuxbot for the first time. |
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| The Linuxbot Installation Manual (Slackware
3.1) This details the complete step-by-step process of Linux installation and configuration, from scratch. (Note: this manual is currently being updated for Slackware 7.1). |
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| The Linuxbot Library Howto This is a user (i.e. programmer's) guide to creating robot applications code using the Linuxbot actuators and sensors function library (downloadable below). |
Linuxbot Library code and example applications:
| The Linuxbot library This is a set of C functions for accessing the robot's actuators and sensors. To be more specific, these functions access:
90% of the library code is concerned with initialising and configuring the HP HCTL1100 motion control devices which (together with the optical shaft encoders) allow a number of sophisticated modes of precision closed-loop control. Included in the zip file is the library source code (robot.c and robot.h) together with a number of simple example programs, including a wall-avoiding program (avoid.c). |
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| Linux-Linux remote tele-operation using
TCP/IP This pair of programs shows how to set up a client/server application, using TCP/IP and the Berkeley Sockets API, for remote robot tele-operation. These programs (lserver.c and lclient.c) assume that you are running the client end on a Linux workstation. The client program (lclient.c) uses the 'curses' library for text-based screen handling. |
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| Windows-Linux remote tele-operation using
TCP/IP This is also a client/server application, using TCP/IP, for remote robot tele-operation, except that here the client application is a Windows GUI, using Borland C++ Builder. Thus to run or modify the client application you will need C++ Builder. The linux server that runs in the robot is the same 'lserver.c' as in the linux-linux example above. Instructions are given in the readme file included. |
LinuxBot (and related) papers:
Winfield AFT and Holland OE, 'The application of wireless local area network technology to the control of mobile robots', Journal of Microprocessors and Microsystems (Elsevier), Vol 23/10, pp 597-607, 2000.