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Drake Robot - User Guide Plymouth University

Brief History Previous Robot - PlymBot The PlymBot robot platform was the first robot which was designed and produced in-house here at Plymouth University, it was develop for both teaching and Robot Football. There have been 5 large revisions, which initially was based off a basic Robotis Bioloid robot. Slowly it has morphed into the final revision of the PlymBot (Mk5 – see below), over a 5 year period.

By developing the Robot in-house the cost has been dramatically reduced and therefore Plymouth university has ended up with over 11 for teaching and robot football. Plymouth has the largest team of our category in the world, although only 3-5 robots are ever used at any international competitions

All the bipedal robots have been built/designed identically, this is to ensure any robot will comply with competition standards which state, all robots in a team, for every event, MUST be identical to one another. This prevents “special” robots being used for one event only. Below is how the final revision of the PlymBot were built.

The PlymBot robot has served Plymouth very well in the past by competing in one of the major robot competitions, FIRA[Federation of International Robot-soccer Association]. The first significant WIN for Plymouth University was at FIRA Taiwan, 2011, where the team achieved 2 gold medals, and set two world records in the sprint & marathon events. Through this success, the University decided to grant money for Robot Football here at Plymouth. This Allowed the creation of Plymouth Humanoids, and the new Drake-I Robot platforms.

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Since 2011, Plymouth Humanoids have competed in 6 more major events, and has won another 2 gold, 2 silver, & 1 bronze medal.

The two main competition that take place annually are;

¾ RoboCup – Humanoids League, Kid Size, which is primly 3 sided football game. (4-sided, 2014). Plymouth was the first UK team in this division ever, and has qualified & competed at the last 2 events; Mexico 2012, Netherlands 2013. The team is now preparing for the upcoming tournament in Brazil 2013.

¾ FIRA – Robotic Olympics, HuroSot League. Which as you a gather, has multiple different events;

Sprint, Marathon, Obstacle Run, Penalty Kick, Soccer (mixed teams), Weightlifting, Lift & Carry, Basket ball, & Climbing. Has mentioned before, Plymouth currently enter only 4 of these events; Sprint, Marathon, Soccer, and Obstacle run, However is always open to new events, or refinement s to current solutions. (All these event rules and more are on the module site)

Robot Football – Why? For the past 20 years (or so), many research institutes such as Honda, MIT’s walking lab, Virginia Tech, and even British University like Reading, Bristol & Plymouth have been designing robots with veering degrees of skills and achievement. What competitions like RoboCup, & FIRA aid to do is twofold;

1. Rules & Environment – By narrowing down the environment that robots need to work in, and giving them a set of rules to follow, such as Football, Sprint, etc… It allows for an easier more achievable goals/targets.

2. Bring the great and the good together – By setting up annual tournaments for teams to compete in and share knowledge with one another. It is also hoped a sense of competitiveness in the teams accelerates their research, and the overall research in to bipedal autonomous robots.

Plymouth Humanoids at RoboCup - Eindhoven, Netherlands 2013

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Internet Recourses Plymouth humanoids – home page This is the Plymouth Humanoids robot football team website, this the university official site for publications of the robot team. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/robotfootball

Plymouth humanoids –Facebook & YouTube These are Plymouth Humanoids social media sites, which are kept up to update, with all the recent events, photos, and videos for all Plymouth humanoids achievements. Please go check them out for more understanding of both the team and the Drake-I & Plymouth Robots. Also please “like” us of Facebook, too get all the up to date news about the team.

FIRA (Federation of International Robot-soccer Association) These are the two main site to checkout for all the relevant information on the FIRA competition. The competition changes hands every year, and each host setup their own website for the competition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_International_Robot-soccer_Association http://fira.net/

RoboCup - Humanoid League – Home page This is the Main site use every year for the “Humanoid League”- please subscribe to the mailing this to get the most up to date information on rules, and registration. http://www.tzi.de/humanoid/bin/view/Website/WebHome Also visit - RoboCup, Brazil 2014 - http://www.robocup2014.org/

Plymouth Humanoids with all their friends at RoboCup - Eindhoven, Netherlands 2013

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Introduction to Drake-I

The Drake-I Robot, came out the research done here at Plymouth. The robot itself only features one similar part/component (RX-28/Mx-28 Servo’s) to its predecessor, PlymBot. All other parts, electronics, and software have been design various people who have even work, or studied here at Plymouth.

Map

Parts & Components o RX28/MX-28 Servo - 20x Robotis strong (24kg/cm) daisy chained servos (MX-28 – robot football only) o Odriod-X2 - Quad Core 1.4Ghz, 2 GB RAM, eMMc Boot, Etc.. From HardKernal o Wifi dongle - 2.4Ghz, Long range & storage single (Large aerial), From HardKernal o Tartarus - Plymouth designed & built, using 32Mhz Atmel Microchip. o Themis – IMU - Plymouth designed & built, 6 axis, using military grade silicon sensing gyro’s o C615 Webcam - Logitech HD 1080p, 8 Megapixels, USB2.0. o Micro Fans - Mini (15x15mm) 9v PC case fans, used to cool robots body. o Drake Body Kit - 27x Different 1.2/2mm T5 aluminum body kit, make by APE Systems o Hex Screws - 400+ hex screw per robot (various sizes) o Cables - 23x 3 & 4 pin COMMs cable. o Lipo Battery - 1x 11.1V, 3 cell, Zippy Compact, 1300mAh o 3D Head - 3D Printed, using the Makerbot, Plymouth designed.

RX/MX-28 Servo

Odroid-X2

Wifi Dongle

Tartarus

Themis

Webcam C615

Fans

3D Head

Drake Body-kit

Lipo Battery

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What’s in the box? Note Book Each robot will come with a small note book. This note book should contain any faults that are know with the robot, and or, any recent fixes to the hardware & software. When using robots, if that fault occurs, please note it down in the book. For example “ Screw fallen out – small hex screw, right knee servo. solution-> have told Clare.” . Please tell Clare Simpson of ANY faults so they can be fixed straight away.

Ethernet & USB Extender Cable The Ethernet cable in the box is the main interface with the robots brain, the Odriod-x2. It is a straight patch, 5meter, blue cable. Please ensure it is returned safely in the box, with the robot.

The USB Extender cable is used for debugging the Tartarus board, which is the microcontroller on the robots back. It is a male – female, 2 meter, black cable. . Please ensure it is returned safely in the box, with the robot.

Atmel ICE3 Programmer This programmer is used to reprogram the Tartarus board on the robots back. This programmer works with “ATMEL 6”, which is a IDE program use to develop C & C++ programs for Atmel’s range of microcontrollers. Here at Plymouth we use this software to develop our “Robot Framework”, specifically the area known as “Hades”. Please ensure it is returned safely in the box, with the robot.

Batteries All the Drake-I have been design to use Li-polymer batteries, which (ones we use) have a voltage from 11.1V – 14.5V depending on how charged they are. The voltage of these batteries WILL affect the walking/gait of your robot, and once close to depleted, your robot will probably fall over, or very unreliably.

To recharge the battery, please either uses the Robotis Blue Charge supplied in the robot case, Or given to Arron/Clare for recharging.

Mains

For the main use / development / testing of the robots, they should be using mains power. There should be a main adaptor for the CM700 in the robot case, this adaptor connects to the main power supply for the Robotis Charger (2.5mm Jack) and to the Tartarus battery socket.

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Plymouth Humanoids Framework Framework – overview The main research project undertaken by the robot football research is the creation and the ongoing development of a Plymouth Robot Framework. The framework is a software/code architecture that defines the layout and the functionality of the robot , the diagram below shows the structure:

Olympus is the higher level area of the framework. Which controls the vision detection, kinematic feedback, UDP Communication, and the Strategy modules

Hermes is the Comms level which is shared between both the higher and lower framework

Hades is the lower level area of the framework, which fundamentally continuous controls/ get feedback from all the servo, and sensor on the robot.

Software & Code This platform requires the use of the following software for fully autonomous running:

Third party software:

¾ PuTTY terminal (SSH Ethernet terminal, allow remote access between two PC’s) ¾ QTcreator (Code IDE, with c, c++ compiler and Libraries, on the Odroid-X2 ) ¾ OpenCV (open source vision libraries, by willow garage ) ¾ RoboPlus Terminal (Serial COMs GUI, for downloading .Hex file to the CM700) ¾ Atmel Studio 6 (Atmel GUI for programming the Tartarus, with the “Hades” code)

Plymouth Framework:

¾ RoboController (Robot Gait Control, for testing gait, pose editing, and calibrating robot) ¾ FIRAPlayer (“Higher level” vision & strategy code, autonomously controlling the robot)