MSDN Magazine - June 2008 - (Page 76)

services used to control specific functionality for your robot. For example, the code in the SimulatedBoeBot service simply populates the simulation scene with entities, one of which is the BoeBot. There is no code in the service that actually moves the robot. You borrow this code from the Drive service. In order to load and use the simple dashboard, you must add it to the manifest by locating an instance of SimpleDashboard in the list of services and dragging it to the bottom of the design surface. The end result should look like Figure 12. The last thing to do is to save the manifest to the project directory of the SimulatedBoeBot service and overwrite the manifest named SimulatedBoeBot.mainfest.xml. You are now ready to run the SimulatedBoeBot service. This can be done by simply clicking Debug and Run from the Visual Studio 2005 menu. At first, a command prompt window should appear. Once the service has loaded, two additional windows should appear. The interface for the Simple Dashboard is a Windows form that includes several group boxes. The right-hand side of the form (see Figure 13) includes a group box titled Remote Node. To begin, you will need to enter the name of your local machine (localhost) in the machine textbox and click Connect. This will initiate a connection with the SimulatedBoeBot service and will load entity partner services, such as the drive service that is shown in the directory listbox. The drive service is used to send power to the wheels that control the Boe-Bot. This allows you to move the Boe-Bot around the simulation using either the virtual joystick control or an actual joystick connected to your computer. To begin, you will need to double-click the SimulatedBoeBot item that appears in the listbox. You can then use your mouse to drag the round virtual joystick control located in the top left-hand corner of the Simple Dashboard form. It may take you a while to get used to using the virtual joystick control (see Figure 14 to see what the simulation should look like). Practice moving the Boe-Bot around and seeing how it reacts when it collides with the box obstacle. You can then go into edit mode, select one of the entities, and adjust some of the properties to see how the entity is affected. Take some time experimenting with the simulation environment to get a feel for how it works. Running the Simulation Figure 13 Drive the Boe-Bot in a Virtual World Figure 14 Operate a Simulated Boe-Bot in a Virtual World Building an Entity without a Differential Drive In this article, I covered how to create a new robot entity named the Boe-Bot. Because the Boe-Bot uses a differential drive system to control the robots wheels, I was able to create an entity type that derived from the DifferentialDriveEntity class. This allowed me to reuse code provided by MSRS to control a robot that uses this type of drive system. If you wanted to simulate a robot that used a different drive system, you would need to first add a class that represented that drive system. For example, some robots use what is known as a tricycle drive system. In this case, a single front wheel is used to move the robot, and two side wheels connected to a separate motor are used to steer the robot in either direction. 76 msdn magazine In order to allow for this type of system in the simulated or physical world, you would need to create a class that accounted for this type of drive system. The steps to do this are beyond the scope of this article, but MSRS does allow you to provide for this type of scenario. This type of expandability is part of what makes MSRS so valuable for robotics researchers. MSRS can be expanded to support any type of hardware platform.  Sara Morgan is a 2007 Microsoft MVP for Office Communications Server. Her first book, Building Intelligent .NET Applications, was published in 2005. In addition to co-authoring several Microsoft Training Kits, she recently pubished Programming Microsoft Robotics Studio. She currently works as a Robotic Software Engineer at CoroWare.com. Robotics Studio http://www.CoroWare.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - June 2008

MSDN Magazine - June 2008 Contents Toolbox CLR Inside Out Cutting Edge Patterns In Practice SAAS Concurrency Robotics Form Filler GUI Library Service Station Foundations Windows With C++ Concurrent Affairs Going Places { End Bracket }

MSDN Magazine - June 2008

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