A new version of the famous Asimo robot was presented last month in Barcelona, Spain. In addition to the former features of this humanoid model, the new version of Asimo features a streamlined design and is able to perform receptionist tasks, carrying objects, and improved mobility.

Advanced speed and mobility:

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Explorer Sim SONAR Service

The ExplorerSimSonar Service is a modification of MSRS Explorer which works with the simulated sonar, instead of using the Simulated Laser Range Finder. It is based on the ExplorerSim service, which is an adaptation of the Explorer service to the simulation environment.

Background

ARCOS based robots (like the Pioneer 3 DX) can integrate up to four Sonar rings, each with eight transducers. These sensors provide object detection and distance information. The Robotics Studio platform comes with a sample service called Explorer that uses the Laser Range Finder as sensing device. However, as I don't have such a device, I wanted to use the P3DX frontal sonar ring instead.

The original ExplorerSim service written by Trevor Taylor builds a map using the laser scans that the explorer is retrieving as the robot wanders around. In this version (ExplorerSimSonar) I've added support for a simulated sonar. Therefore, the map is created based on frontal sonar scans.

Service Download:

• Source code download.

Installation instructions (for source code zip archive):

ExplorerSimSonar is a Robotics Studio Service (DSS Service) that allows you to experiment with a simple explorer behavior for a differential drive robot. Navigation and mapper are based on Sonar scans retrieved by the robot. The zip file contains the source code and Visual Studio project.

Decompress the contents of the file under MSRS home directory. Note that the service source code is located under Apps directory. Build it using Visual Studio.

See the readme.txt file included in the distribution package for detailed instructions and version history. It is important that you install the service in a machine with the same version of MSRS that is indicated in the readme.txt file. I always try to update the distribution file with the latest available version of MSRS, please check regularly for updates.

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What coordinate system is used in Microsoft Robotics Studio Simulation Environment?

 MSRS Visual Simulation Environment uses the right handed coordinate system. In a right handed coordinate system a rotation about a directed axis is called positive if it causes a right handed screw to advance in the positive direction of the axis.

In the virtual three dimensional world we have three axes. If your robot is located at position (x=0, y=0, z=0) in the world, then:

The positive X represents the right of the robot, and the negative X coordinates represent the left of the robot. For instance, to place a ball to the right of the robot, we would use something like (x=1, y=0, z=0).

The positive Y represents the top of the robot, and the negative Y coordinates represent the bottom of the robot. For instance, in order to not to have the former ball embedded in the ground, we should elevate its position a little bit, using something like (x=1, y=0.5, z=0).

The positive Z represents the rear of the robot, and the negative Z coordinates represent the front of the robot. For instance, if we want now to move the ball to the front of the robot so it can "see" it better, we would use something like (x=1, y=0, z=-3).

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How to setup the serial port to communicate with an ARCOS robot?

The concrete case I am describing here is a MobileRobots Pioneer 3 DX robot, but I think this applies to any ARCOS based robot.

Interfacing with the Pioneer 3 DX hardware via Microsoft Robotics Studio requires some configuration. For instance, the first problem I faced was to setup the correct serial port. Some P3 DX setups include an embedded computer; however that is not my case. Instead, I am using a regular laptop connected to the serial port of the robot (actually using a USB to RS232 adaptor). This means that the laptop will communicate with the robot through com3, com4 or whatever comX that Windows driver assigns to the USB to RS232 adaptor. For initial testing I was using the Robotics Tutorial 5 included in the Robotics Studio distribution.

In my case, the port was COM4, so how could I tell MSRS to use laptop’s COM4 port to communicate with the robot? I asked that question and this is the answer from Microsoft:

You will want to check the DriverState section and adjust the connection settings...

<ArcosCoreState xmlns: xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns: xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/xw/2005/12/arcoscore.html">
<DriverState>
<ComPort>COM4</ComPort>
<BaudRate>0</BaudRate>
</DriverState>
</ArcosCoreState>

You can create it as follows:
1. Run VPL
2. Drag the "Arcos Core" service on to the pallette
3. In the properties tab, change Configuration to "Set initial configuration"
4. Update the DriverState section with the appropriate config
5. Save the diagram
6. Find the ArcosCore.Config.xml in the directory where you saved the diagram and copy it to [1], making sure to change the name to "ArcosCoreService.xml".
7. Run your service again.

[1] C:\Microsoft Robotics Studio 1.5 (CTP May 2007)\store\ArcosCoreService.xml

Take into account that this applies to Microsot Robotics Studio 1.5 CTP May 2007 (and I have done it with the official 1.5 release as well). I don’t know whether or not this will work for future releases.

The ArcosCoreService.xml file contains more configuration settings that can be altered either using the VPL or editing the XML file directly.

 The following is an example of the ArcosCoreService.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

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Conscious-Robots.com pages for MSRS (Microsoft Robotics Studio)

These pages include information, MSRS services, C# sample code, and resources for the programming of real and simulated robots using MSRS. These pages can be of interest for anyone working on autonomous mobile robotics. Most of the code and applications included in this section is intended for its use in academic projects on robotics.