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Evolution Robotics, ER1 Robot, and ERSP Thread.

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Admin:
If any of you guys want an account for a members tutorial, let me know. You can then create a page with 'ER1 Resources' on it.

SciTech02:
Thanks for the offer.  We don't have any tutorials or enough ER1 resources to necessitate a specific page yet (I'm still trying to develop my robot).  However when we do get enough resources, I'll contact you about it.

urro:
Hello everybody! I have also an ER1, almost abandoned by now. My problem with this robot is about the APIs provided by Evolution (Python and text commands by TCP/IP): I find both of them very disappointing. So I have tried to find alternatives. I have found two:

-   http://www.cs.ust.hk/~yiu/robot/  RCMotion : Small C++ software that directly call the ER1 RCM via serial port
-   http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/   There exists a Player / Stage driver for the ER1 (looks quite similar to the first one)

Both seem to be abandoned, and both have important deficiencies. But I think that a fully functional Player / Stage driver for the ER1 (probably improved with parts of the RCMotion) would be the best starting point for further developments. P/S provides not only a platform independent, language independent (or almost) access to the robot, but also a simulator and a hell of robotics algorithms.

The main problems I find now with the current version of the ER1 P/S driver are:
-   it doesn’t connect to the robot when the battery is not full
-   the odometry is, at best, questionable
-   the hobbyist ports don’t work
-   the gripper and the IR sensors are not supported

But as a free software platform, we can solve all of this. If anyone is interested, we can cooperate to improve the driver.

What do you think?

Ro-Bot-X:
Wellcome!

I am interested in thinkering with Linux and PLayer/Stage.
I think the hobby ports don't work properly because of some hardware and driver problem. Croc4 added some capacitors to the analog pins and the reading improved. I didn't look at this closely, I chose a second microcontroller route, to read the sensors and control the servos for head and arm(s).

Anyway, the idea is great, however I am not a computer programmer, so I will not be a big help to further develop code. Perhaps I can do more on the hardware side of things.

SciTech02:
Welcome fellow ER1 owner.  :) Interesting...  More programs to look through.  I didn't think there was this much third-party software for the ER1.  Personally, I'm trying to create all my scripts using only the RCC API commands (so people who only have the RCC can do stuff without having to buy/download extra software).  Supposedly, you can access the hobby ports by using only that.

I haven't worked on my ER1 for about a week, due to problems with the laptop. :-\ However, I'm tweaking my mapping script(s), so that they work better (I'll keep updating).

Good news, Evolution Robotics has re-released the ER1 robot in a limited quantity.  It's now called the ER1-D and you can buy the RCM-D separately.  Link: http://www.evolution.com/er1/  Share your opinions about this and, if you own a new ER1-D/RCM-D, tell us how they are (I'm curious if they look any different).

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