ViCoN-Bot Tutorial. Users Guide Summer 2002 Version 1.0. Jeff Vickers Kwabena Bosompem Kevin Walker Andre Moore

Transcription

1 ViCoN-Bot Tutorial Users Guide Summer 2002 Version 1.0 Jeff Vickers Kwabena Bosompem Kevin Walker Andre Moore

2 Introduction This document gives instructions on how to make the ViCoN-Bot traverse a track using the color cues seen by its digital camera. The ViCoN-Bot consists of the digital CMU-cam, the Altera Nios Board, and the M1025 Hummer remote control car with direction and speed servo motors. Altera s Quartas II 2.0 and Microsoft Visual C++ are the software used to program the robot. Before starting the robot, make sure that a computer with the Quartus II software is available. The software may have to be downloaded to the chip s flash memory or the chip may have been reset. To check if the software is downloaded on the chip, connect the dc power source to the Nios Board. If the LCD does not display GaTech ViCoN-Bot then Camera Initialized, then the software must be downloaded to the chip. Refer to the Downloading Software section to download the software. If the program is already on the chip proceed to Operating ViCoN-Bot. Downloading Software to Flash Memory 1. First open up the ViCoN Quartus project file by clicking on ViCoN.qurartus located in the directory Vicon/hardware/vp/Vicon.quartus. A project window will open up with a BDF called ViCoN.bdf as shown in Figure Compile ViCoN.bdf by pressing the play button on the task bar. This will take about seven minutes to complete. The status fields show what percentage of the compilation is complete. 3. Next configure the APEX device with the ViCoN system module by choosing Open Programmer from the Processing Menu. A Chain Description File(.cdf) is opened up like Chain1.cdf in Figure 1. a. Make sure JTAG is selected in the Mode list of the Programmer window. b. Under Programming Hardware, click Setup. The Hardware Setup dialog box appears. c. In the Hardware Type list, select ByteBlasterMV. In the Port list, choose the port that the ByteBlasterMV cable is connected to. Click OK. Next, click Close to exit the Hardware Setup window. d. Click Add File and the Select Programming File window will appear. Select the ViCoN.sof file in the Programmer window. e. Turn on Program/Configure by checking the box as shown in Figure1. f. Make sure that the JTAG switch configuration on the Nios Board is correct. Refer to Figure 2 for the correct configuration of the switches

3 Figure 1. Vicon.bdf and Programming window g. Make sure the ByteBlaster is connected properly to JP3 on the Nios Board. h. Click Start to begin downloading the configuration data. A message appears when the data is downloaded successfully. If the device is configured properly LED1 and LED2 will be turned on. 4. Now that the device is configured, you can run the ViCoN source files. In order to run the source file you would need to start a Nios SDK Shell. A batch file was created to make it easy to run the shell tool. Figure 3 shows the BASHRC file that generates an icon to start the shell prompt. To open the shell window and run the source files follow the steps bellow

4 Figure 2. Nios Board JTAG switch configuration Figure 3. File to generate shell prompt automatically and C - 3 -

5 a. Double click on the ViCoN-Bot Shell in Vicon/ directory. A shell window like the one in Figure 4 should appear. b. When the shell finishes echoing lines on the screen, press the up arrow on the keyboard until the last line reads nr Vicon.srec. c. Make sure the 9-pin serial cable is connected to the PC port and the serial connector on the Nios Board. d. Press Enter. The screen will show the download in progress. e. Turn on the CMU-cam. The red light should illuminate when the switch is flipped up. f. When downloading is complete and successful the LCD should read GaTech ViCoN-Bot then Camera Initialized, assuming the camera is turned on. The ViCoN-Bot is ready to go. Until the ViCoN-Bot is ready to traverse the demo track keep the camera lens from viewing anything red, pink, green, or yellow. These colors will trigger the camera to start tracking. Figure 4. SDK shell window - 4 -

6 Operating the ViCoN-Bot After the software and configurations are downloaded the ViCoN-Bot is ready to track colors. If the Nios Board is not turned on, connect the power source to the Nios Board. Then turn on the camera by flipping the power switch up. The red LED should illuminate. Once the camera is on the LCD should read GaTech ViCoN-Bot then Camera Initialized. Pink, green, and yellow are the colors that it is programmed to track. Pink tells the ViCoN-Bot to go straight forward. Green tells the robot to slow up and make a left turn. If the robot gets to close to the green paper, it will reverse. Yellow tells the robot to stop. A state-machine controls the ViCoN-Bot movement. The LCD displays the current state. When the camera recognizes one of the three colors it begins to track it and perform the respective action. The green light on the camera indicates that it is tracking a color. Setting up the Track for Demo The demo track consists of four strips of approximately 1X2 feet pink construction paper suspended by yarn from both sides of wall in hallway on the 3 rd floor of the CoC building. Also 2X2 feet of green construction paper were tacked to the wall. The track was set up as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. Track setup pictures. Each piece of construction paper is about 8 meters apart. To get ViCoN-Bot to follow the track, simply place it approximately 3 meters in front of the first pink piece of construction paper. The robot should start tracking pink, proceed forward, and then make a left turn when it tracks the green construction paper. ViCoN-Bot should then track the other two pink construction papers and proceed forward. Finally it will come to a stop when it passes the second pink construction paper because none of the selected colors are available to be tracked