9.1 Starting Up the BeeSoft Commander
You can run the BeeSoft Commander from either :
The local console, that is the laptop or notebook computer mounted on the top of your robot, IF you have a B21 robot with the console computer installed;
OR
On your own X-Windows workstation, connected to your robot via an Ethernet radiolink, or radio modem and PPP. The Ethernet connection is highly recommended.
Before running the Commander, you need to establish an IP connection to your robot. Please note that the exact procedure for doing this is determined by the specific terminal program you are running.
1.Free up the serial console and serial port. To do this, log out from the serial console if you are logged on. Then, quit any terminal emulator program or any program you have attached to the serial port, for example, minicom.(Use <CTRL-A> <CTRL-Q> for minicom.)
2. Establish a PPP connection. Copy the script /etc/ppp/pppconnect from the robot onto your workstation. If you dont know how to do this, ask the system administrator at your site. Run the script on your workstation. NOTE: Do NOT run this script on your robot!
This script will run on Linux workstations, and will also most likely run on any UNIX workstation. If your environment differs, or the script will not run, youll need to find out how to establish a PPP connection in your environment before proceeding. Ask your system administrator. This is the general procedure, though: Login as user ppp. The password youll need is aa6bb7cc.
Upon successful running of the script, you have established an IP connection to the robot.
3. Establish three windows:
Window#1: In this window, log in as demo, password aa1bb2cc. Then, telnet to <your-computer-name> (whatever name has been assigned to the computer on board your robot). Once telnetted to the robot, youll run bWatch (~bee/bin/bWatch), a program that allows you to monitor server activity, in this window. bWatch displays, every few seconds, a list of all processes running, and does so continually until you terminate it. To see the display of running processed at any given time displayed just once, use the program bCheck (~bee/bin/bCheck) instead.
Window#2: In this window, log in as demo, password aa1bb2cc. Then, telnet to <your-computer-name> (whatever name has been assigned to the computer on board your robot). Once telnetted to the robot, youll type commands in this window.
Window #3: In the third window, youll run the BeeSoft Commander.
To fire up the BeeSoft Commander, start up each of these programs:
In the window in which you are logged into the ROBOT (window#2):
tcxServerbaseServer colliServer
In the window in which you are logged into your WORKSTATION (window#3):
commander -TCXHOST=<your-computer-name>
Youll see the BeeSoft Commander interface display window.
NOTE: If, at any time, the Commander does not respond properly, do the following steps:
1. Type killall tcxServer to kill all running servers.
2. Reset the robots base (On the B14, the system reset is the second toggle from the left on the top of the robot; on the B21, the system reset is located on the base control panel (See Figure 2-2.).
3. Cycle the MSPs. On the B14, flip the leftmost toggle off briefly; then flip it back on. On the B21, flip the left middle toggle on the B21 Switch Panel, behind the robots right reardoor. (See Figures 1-3D and 1-3E.)
4. Restart all servers
5. Restart the BeeSoft Commander
Figure 9-1 - The BeeSoft Commander Interface Display