Controlling your CoroWare Robot
You can control your CoroBot or Explorer using several frameworks, over different languages and operating systems. You can use any of these APIs to write your own code to control the robot autonomously: explore new environments, test new algorithms, and push the limits of your research. We also provide sample teleoperation programs to drive your CoroBot or Explorer from another computer over a WiFi network, to see through the robot’s camera and other sensors, and control its arm. Best of all, we include all of the source code, so you can modify the teleoperation program, or use it as an example to help you write your own remote controllers from scratch.
Ubuntu Linux
CoroWare uses Ubuntu Linux, one of today’s most widely used distributions. We use the long-term support versions on our robots, currently 9.04.
Player (C, C++, Python)
The Player Project is a software framework for controlling sensors, actuators, and even full commercial robots. It is one of the best established robot control frameworks in academic research, and has a small enough footprint to run on a number of processors – not just PCs. Of course, CoroWare provides a custom driver plugin for the CoroBot, supporting each of the sensors and actuators on the robot. Our teleoperation GUI works through GTK and Glade. And as always, we provide the source code to the driver and teleoperation program, written in C++, but accessible in C, C++, or Python. Player is actively being enhanced and supported by its user community at http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/ .
CoroWare is now publicly hosting the doxygen documentation for Player. You can build this documentation yourself with some additional effort when you download and build Player, but we find it also nice for reference when you don't have a Player installation handy. You can find it at http://support.coroware.com/Player_3.0.1/
Windows
CoroWare’s software is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.
C Language API
CoroWare provides a C-based API for controlling all the functions of the CoroBot and Explorer. Standard C functions and structures let you do anything your heart desires. Our C API is designed to work with Microsoft’s Visual Studio and with Microsoft Visual C++ Express Edition. We also provide sample programs showing you how to access the sensors and actuators on the robot.
RoboRealm
RoboRealm is a vision processing and control system. It has been integrated onto the CoroBot by RoadNarrows and may be purchased from them.
MSRS 1.5 or MRDS 2008 (written in C#)
CoroWare was an early adopter of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio. CoroWare no longer supports MRDS, but to keep the community innovating, we have released MSRS 1.5, MRDS 2008 and MRDS 2008 R2 services for the CoroBot at http://corobot.sourceforge.net, under the GPL v2 license. We provide one service for each sensor and actuator on the robot, allowing you to control the drive, arm (both inverse and forward kinematics), camera, and other sensors. The services are written in C#, and even satisfy alternate contracts to allow your robot to be drivable from the MRDS Dashboard program. Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio has an active community centered around Microsoft’s forums located at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/robotics .
CoroWare also released a CoroBot simulation for on SourceForge, under the GPL v2 license. It too is available at SourceForge.
