9.2 The BeeSoft Commander™ Interface Display
Let’s take a quick tour of the display. Just a reminder: To quit at any time, just click on the Quit Program box under the large circle. After quitting, be sure to kill all running servers by typing:
killall tcxServer
On the very left edge is a vertical bar indicating the robot’s current battery voltage. Next, moving rightwards, you’ll see the Navigation Window. Here, you can set the robot’s velocity and acceleration and observe its location and motions as it moves about its environment. The large circle delimits the range of possible target points (this is usually three meters, but you can change it.).
The symbol at the circle’s center is your robot; radiating outwards are blue lines that representthe latest sonar readings, and yellow beams representing input from the optional laser rangefinder. This initial target point mode is the default; the other mode is joystick emulation.
Along the left edge of the Navigation Window are vertical bars tell you the robot’s actual translation velocity and rotation velocity. These indicators show the actual values reported by the robot. Along the right edge pf the Navigation Window are similar bars, showing the translation and rotation velocities you’ve specified.
Just to the upper left of the large circle, the two stacks of small buttons correspond to the four colored buttons on the top of your robot. A button in the left stack is shaded when the corresponding button on the robot is currently lit. A button in the right stack is shaded when the corresponding button on the robot is currently pushed. An asterisk in any of the buttons means the corresponding button on the robot is blinking. Toggle these buttons with your left mouse button. (NOTE: This button feature is not currently supported. Future releases of the BeeSoft Commander will support this feature.)
At the upper middle part of the display, you’ll see the Pan/Tilt Window. Horizontal and vertical bars at the lower and left edges indicate the pan/tilt head’s current position. When you first start up the BeeSoft Commander, this window shows a test pattern; during robot operation — if your robot carries one or two cameras — you’ll see here a coarse greyscale image of what your robot is seeing. Underneath the display area is a 3 position toggle for pan/tilt head motion speed. The default is normal speed; other values are high and low.
At the upper right, the Map Window displays a bird’s eye view of your robot’s path as it explores its surroundings. Back in Chapter 4, Making Your Robot Move, you learned about the colliServer parameter file called colli_modes.ini, in which you can define the scale represented by the map, as well as several other variables of interest.
Arrayed along the lower part of the display are a collection of control buttons and indicators that tell you which robot hardware and software subsystems are active.
Beneath the Pan/Tilt Window, you’ll see a button labeled colliServer. This button lets you toggle among three modes of collision-avoidance motion offered by colliServer: default, fast and random. In fast mode, the robot has a higher maximum speed, and is slightly more aggressive in its movements. See the information on the colliServer, in Chapter 4, Making Your Robot Move for more details on colliServer modes and how to use them.
