Khepera II
Software
K-Team Serial Protocol for Remote Operation
All K-Team robots can be remotely operated using a standard ASCII Serial Protocol. Using a RS232 cable or a wireless connection, the robots can receive orders formatted as ASCII strings and send back some results if required. The robot can be completely operated using this protocol as commands are available to control the motors, read the sensors, communicate with extensions and setup all the robot parameters.
For instance, to read the robot proximity sensors, the “N” string should be sent and the robot will answer sending: “n,123,124,234,12,34,36” where each number is a sensor reading.
With this mechanism, the robots can be controlled, from a remote computer, using any software able to communicate with a serial port. K-Team provides several libraries and example code to communicate with the robots from a Visual C++ program, from Matlab, from Labview, or from a Linux C program….
Remote Operation Program
A remote operation program can be written using almost any programming language. K-Team provides example code in C/C++ for Linux environement and windows using Visual Studio, these examples are available in the download section. Many other examples and implementation of the protocol are available from various K-Team partners and users, please visit our Freeware section for more details. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like your own implementation to be added on the list…
Matlab Plugins
Thanks to the serial protocol operation, all of our products (robots, boards) can be controlled directly from MATLAB® via an RS232 cable or wireless link. MATLAB® is well-known software produced by The MathWorks, Inc. that allows powerful computation and visualisation of scientific data. K-Team provides MATLAB® modules to access the robot functionalities via an RS232 serial cable using K-Team’s SerCom communication protocol. These modules are available as a free download for both MAC and PC.
For truly interactive graphics controler K-Team suggests the MATLAB®-inspired program SysQuake. Using a syntax similar to MATLAB®, SysQuake permits real-time interactive graphic manipulation to control and analyse your system.
LabView Plugins
Thanks to the serial protocol operation, all of our products (robots, boards) can be controlled directly from LabVIEW® via an RS232 cable or a wireless link. We provide VIs for all of the functionalities supported by our hardware. They are available as a free download for both MAC and PC.
LabVIEW® is well-known software written by National Instruments. It is designed for use with industrial and research instrumentation and has very powerful visualisation capabilities. Moreover, it is designed to be connected to real-world devices and deal with real time constraints. The graphical user interface makes programming with LabVIEW® easy even for non-engineers. These features make LabVIEW® very useful software for controlling and analysing mobile robots.
LabVIEW® runs on your computer (K-Team supports MAC, Windows and UNIX on SUN) and communicates with the robot or board via an RS232 serial cable using K-Team’s SerCom communication protocol.
LabVIEW® is a great tool for creating a nice interface to control the motors in just a couple of minutes:
Similarly, a small graphical representation of the sensor activity of Khepera can be quickly created
LabVIEW® is programmed graphically as shown in this little example of obstacle avoidance behaviour based on direct connections between motors and sensors
