Control System
e-nuvo WALK's system is a distributed controlled system composed of three layers (PC, Main CPU, Sub-CPU) with processes running on all of them. In this part we are going to explain the software processes of the PC side of the e-nuvo WALK architecture. The PC acting as e-nuvo's brain is in charge of the execution of motion patterns by transmitting these to the robot. The robot, once it receives these patterns, executes them with its two legs.
e-nuvo DLL
The e-nuvo DLL is a package of control and communication functions for the robot. These functions are in charge of the communication between PC and robot, so that the user commands can be converted in a format that is understood by the low-level Sub-CPUs.
e-nuvo API
This is the API function library that the user utilize when writing his/her own programs for the robot. (API: Application Programming Interface) The robot can be programmed using both Visual C++ or Visual BASIC (both from the Windows [.NET framework]) Each and everyone of these API functions are explained in the User Manual of the robot in a easy-to-understand format. The Set also comes with a set of example programs which permit the user to start programming their robot immediately after getting them
e-nuvo GUI
Built using Visual BASIC, the e-nuvo GUI is a GUI tool for intuitively operating the robot. Although you can completely control and program the robot using the e-nuvo API, the e-nuvo GUI provides a convenient way to all the basic operations the user can require. Among its multiple functionalities we can name: Initialization and Calibration of the robot, Motors' PID parameters setup, Motion File Execution, Sensor data log (CSV and Matlab's .M formats), etc. The source code of the e-nuvo GUI is open source, so that the user can use it for reference to construct his own programs, or even improve it!
Motion!
These are text files that specify the motions of e-nuvo WALK. The format of these files are CSV files that describe the 12 angles of the robot, and therefore can be easily modified with any editor or spreadsheet.
Motion maker
Although the motion files can be modified with an editor the Set comes with an convenient tool for building Motion Files. This tool is called "Motion Maker." First the user prepares several "Poses" (describing the angles of the 12 angles of the robot at a particular instant) and based on these poses, the Motion Maker works as an interpolator to build the corresponding motion file. So far, these tool uses linear interpolation.
MATLAB M-file
Since the Motion Files are simple CSV text files, Motion Maker is not the only way to built these files. The user can freely use other tools or make their own to make new motions. Included in the Set, we provide also several MATLAB M-File Scripts, that permit the user to build Motion Files using the powerful features of MATLAB, which includes interpolation methods other than just linear: spline, trigonometric, etc. This allows the user to build smoother motions than the ones built with the Motion Maker. Also included is a walking pattern generator that doesn't use pose interpolation. All these methods provide the student with many different tools to learn and research into the field of bipedal motion.
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