NAME

Robotics - Robotics hardware control and abstraction

VERSION

Version 0.22

SYNOPSIS

Provides local communication to robotics hardware devices, related peripherals, or network communication to these devices. Also provides a high-level, object oriented software interface to abstract the low level robotics commands or low level robotics hardware. Environmental configuration is provided with a configuration file in YAML format. Allows other hardware device drivers to be plugged into this module.

Simple examples are provided in the examples/ directory of the distribution.

This main Robotics.pm module is an abstraction layer for many types of robotics devices and related peripheral hardware. Other hardware, motor controllers, CNC, or peripheral devices may exist below this module, or under Devices::, or under other libraries, and new implementation is welcomed.

Nominclature note: The name "Robotics" is used in full, rather than "Robot", to distinguish mechanical robots from the many internet-spidering software modules or software user agents commonly (and erroneously) referred to as "robots". Robotics has motors; both the internet & software do not!

Technical details: This & related modules use YAML to allow users (and the module itself) to use configuration data in a readable way. The configuration data contains: physical locations of objects to interact with, physical points in space to navigate from/to, dictionary definitions, equipment lists, and so on, as well as the tokens for the low-level robotics commands.

To use this software with locally-connected robotics hardware:

Use the module(s)

Use the query method to probe for connected hardware or (in the future) remote robotics hardware servers via the network

Create a 'new' robotics object from the desired hardware

Use the robotics object to 'Attach' to the robotics hardware for communications

Use the robotics object to control the physical hardware, perhaps using very high level semantics which translate into multiple lower-level robotics commands.

Example (Please see currently working examples in the distribution):

    use Robotics;
    use Robotics::Tecan;

    my %hardware = Robotics::query();
    if ($hardware{"Tecan-Genesis"} eq "ok") { 
        print "Found locally-connected Tecan Genesis robotics!\n";
    }
    elsif ($hardware{"Tecan-Genesis"} eq "busy") {
        print "Found locally-connected Tecan Genesis robotics but it is busy moving!\n";
        exit -2;
    }
    else {
        print "No robotics hardware connected\n";
        exit -3;
    }
    my $tecan = Robotics->new("Tecan") || die;
    $tecan->attach() || die;    # initiate communications 
    $tecan->configure("my-worktable.yaml");      # Load YAML configuration file (optional)
    $tecan->park("roma0");      # move robotics arm to 'home' position
    $tecan->move("roma0", "platestack", "s");    # move robotics named arm to vector start
    $tecan->grip("roma0");    # grip the plate with the named arm
    $tecan->move("roma0", "platestack", "e");    # move robotics named arm to vector end
    # TBD $tecan->fetch_tips($tip, $tip_rack);   # move liquid handling arm to get tips
    # TBD $tecan->liquid_move($aspiratevol, $dispensevol, $from, $to);
    ...

To use this software with remote robotics hardware over the network:

  # On the local machine, run:
    use Robotics;
    use Robotics::Tecan;

        my %hardware = Robotics::query();
    my $tecan = Robotics->new("Tecan") || die "no tecan found\n";
    $tecan->attach() || die;
    # TBD $tecan->configure("my work table configuration file") || die;
    # Run the server and process commands
    while (1) {
      $error = $tecan->server(passwordplaintext => "0xd290"); # start the server
      # Internally runs communications between client->server->robotics
      if ($tecan->lastClientCommand() =~ /^shutdown/) { 
        last;   
      
    }
    $tecan->detach();   # stop server, end robotics communciations
    exit(0);

  # On the remote machine (the client), run:
    use Robotics;
    use Robotics::Tecan;

    my $server = "heavybio.dyndns.org:8080";
    my $password = "0xd290";
    my $tecan = Robotics->new("Tecan");
    $tecan->connect($server, $mypassword) || die;
    $tecan->home();
    $tecan->configure("my-worktable.yaml");      # Load YAML configuration file (optional)
     
    ... same as first example with communication automatically routing over network ...
    $tecan->detach();   # end communications
    exit(0);

EXPORT

No exported functions

FUNCTIONS

query

Query the local machine for connected hardware.

The user application must call this method to find hardware prior to attempting to access the hardware.

Developer design note: Robotics modules must all provide a mechanism for finding attached hardware and return the key-value. Communication must not allowed to any hardware device unless queried (probed) for status first. This mechanism eliminates operating system issues (hanging device drivers, etc) when the hardware does not exist or is not ready for communication.

configure

Loads configuration data into memory.

pathname of configuration file in YAML format

Returns: 0 if success, 1 if file error, 2 if configuration error.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

Many of these robotics devices are designed primarily or exclusively for MSWin systems. This means module requirements and internal code must be activeperl and MSWin friendly. This author suggests discussing with the manufacturer(s) requesting more Unix/OSX/POSIX compatibility when appropriate.

AUTHOR

Jonathan Cline, <jcline at ieee.org>

BUGS

Please report any bugs or feature requests to bug-bio-robotics at rt.cpan.org, or through the web interface at http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Robotics. I will be notified, and then you'll automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.

SUPPORT

You can find documentation for this module with the perldoc command.

    perldoc Robotics

You can also look for information at:

• RT: CPAN's request tracker

  http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Robotics

• AnnoCPAN: Annotated CPAN documentation

  http://annocpan.org/dist/Robotics

• CPAN Ratings

  http://cpanratings.perl.org/d/Robotics

• Search CPAN

  http://search.cpan.org/dist/Robotics/

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

COPYRIGHT & LICENSE

Copyright 2009 Jonathan Cline.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of either: the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; or the Artistic License.

See http://dev.perl.org/licenses/ for more information.

cpanm Robotics

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Robotics