This document covers how to control the RB1 from a remote computer.

It will cover the content of rb-1-quickstart.doc.pdf and rb-1-software.doc.pdf and go into additional details.

Installing ROS.

Starting the robot and initializing the CPU requires pressing buttons at the back of the robot in a certain order.

The green switch corresponds to the ON/OFF button and is responsible for providing energy to the rest of the system. The yellow button resets the motors. The blue button turns the CPU on/off.

The buttons have to be pressed in the order indicated in the image to initialize the robot correctly.

Once the robot has been initialized, its Wifi will be turned on. The name of the robot's Wifi follow the pattern “RB1-SerialNumber”.

Before anything else, it is necessary to register the robot's IP in the computer's /etc/hosts. This step is required to be able to connect to the robot:

  user@remote:~$ sudo nano /etc/hosts
  # add the following line
  192.168.0.200   rb1
  

Next, the computer's IP has to be added to the robot's own /etc/hosts. This step is necessary to control several ROS topics from a remote computer.

First, connect to the robot's wifi and check your IP address.

  user@remote:~$ ifconfig
  

Once you have obtained your IP adress (192.168.x.x), connect to the robot and add the name of your computer (equivalent of remote in the example above) to the /etc/hosts file.

  user@remote:~$ ssh rb1@rb1
  rb1@rb1:~$ sudo nano /etc/hosts
  # add the following line
  192.168.x.x  name_of_computer