Hello All,
I have released a ROS package for the Serializer microcontroller
made by the Robotics Connection. I have been using and developing
this package several months along with at least one other ROS user
so I hope I have most of the egregious bugs fixed. Please let me
know if you run into trouble with either the code or the Wiki page:
Wiki: http://www.ros.org/wiki/serializer
SVN: http://pi-robot-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/pi-robot-ros-stack/serializer/
The Serializer has both analog and digital sensor pins, a PWM servo
controller, and a PID controller that works well with the ROS
navigation stack.
The underlying driver is written in Python and provides some
convenience functions for specific sensors such as the Phidgets
temperature, voltage and current sensors, the Sharp GP2D12 IR
sensor, and the Ping sonar sensor. It also includes two PID drive
commands: Rotate(angle, speed) and TravelDistance(distance, speed)
for controlling the drive motors.
Most of the Serializer functions have been implemented though a
few have not been tested since I don't currently have some of the
supported sensors. The functions that have not
been tested are:
- step (used with a bipolar stepper motor)
- sweep (also used with a bipolar stepper motor)
- srf04, srf08 and srf10 (used with a Devantech SRF04, SRF08 and
SRF10 sonar sensors)
- tpa81 (used with the Devantech TPA81 thermopile sensor)
The driver requires Python 2.6.5 or higher and PySerial 2.3 or
higher. It has been tested on Ubuntu Linux 10.04.
Documentation for the Python Serializer library can be found at:
http://www.pirobot.org/code/serializer.html
The official Serializer manual can be found at:
http://www.roboticsconnection.com/multimedia/docs/Serializer_3.0_UserGuide.pdf
Sincerely,
Patrick Goebel
The Pi Robot Project