Player stage with the Khepera III

Installing Player/stage on the computer

We assume the computer is running Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). The instructions for other distributions should be similar. Instructions for Mac OS X are added. (from Installing Player Stage in Ubuntu)

Installing the packages

Run the following command:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install autotools-dev build-essential cmake cpp libboost-signals1.40.0 libboost-signals1.40-dev libboost-thread1.40.0 libboost-thread1.40-dev libcv1 libcv-dev libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-dev libgsl0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libjpeg62-dev libtool libxmu-dev swig freeglut3 freeglut3-dev libfltk1.1 libfltk1.1-dev libltdl7 libltdl7-dev libpng12-0-dev libpng12-0 libswscale-dev libraw1394-dev libdc1394-22-dev libmagick++ libmagick++-dev libmagickcore-dev libmagickwand-dev libhighgui-dev libcvaux-dev

update for Ubuntu 10.10

Player dependencies:

 sudo apt-get install autotools-dev build-essential cmake cpp libboost-signals1.42.0 libboost-signals1.42-dev libboost-thread1.42 libboost-thread1.42-dev libcv2.1 libcv-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev  libgnomecanvas2-0 libgnomecanvas2-dev libgsl0-dev libgtk2.0-dev libjpeg62-dev libtool libxmu-dev swig    

Stage dependencies;

 sudo apt-get install freeglut3 freeglut3-dev libfltk1.1 libfltk1.1-dev libltdl7 libltdl7-dev libpng12-0-dev libpng12-0   

This will install a whole bunch of libraries and tools. (Approximately 100MB)

Mac users: Install the boost libraries

Create symbolic link

sudo mkdir -p /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/
sudo ln -s /etc/X11/rgb.txt /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt

Mac users:sudo ln -s /usr/X11/share/X11/rgb.txt /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/

Get the necessary files

wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/playerstage/files/Stage/2.1.1/stage-2.1.1.tar.gz/download
wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/playerstage/files/Player/2.1.3/player-2.1.3.tar.gz/download

Add the following to your ~/.bashrc file:

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Mac users:export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH

Mac users:install gtk2 using port

Install the files by running

tar zxvf player-2.1.3.tar.gz
tar zxvf stage-2.1.1.tar.gz
cd player-2.1.3
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ../stage-2.1.1
./configure
make
sudo make install

Get the Khepera III configuration

We have set up an SVN repository for the default Khepera III configuration needed for Player/stage. Run the following command to checkout the needed files anonymously (read-only):

svn co https://como.vub.ac.be/svn/Robotics/KheperaIII/Player_stage/

CoMo members can do the following or specify their username in the above command for read-write:

svn co https://como.vub.ac.be/svn/Robotics/

Following files should now be available:

Filename	Description
on_pc/KheperaIII.cfg	Player server configuration file
on_pc/kheperaIII.inc	Definitions of robot devices
on_pc/kheperaIII.world	Simulation parameters
on_pc/map.inc	Definitions of the map model
on_pc/bitmaps/cave.png	map of the virtual world
on_pc/bitmaps/kh3.png	Image of the virtual Khepera III

Additionally, to test your Khepera-simulation, a very simple obstacle avoidance program is available:

Filename	Description
sonar/sonarobstacleavoid.cc	A very simple obstacle avoiding program

Do NOT download these files from the K-Team server because they contain errors. The files in the SVN version have been corrected and work!!!

To compile this simple program, just use

make

Running the program is done by first starting the server

player KheperaIII.cfg & 

And then the program, which will connect to the server

./sonarobstacleavoid

Something similar to this should show up (although with a different map and only one Khepera):

The configuration of the sensors is as follows:

Installing Player/stage on the Khepera

Filename	Description
on_kh3/kheperaIII.cc
on_kh3/kheperaIII.h
on_kh3/Makefile
on_kh3/KheperaIII.cfg
on_kh3/KheperaIII.so
on_kh3/libltdl3_1.5.10-r3_armv5te.ipk
on_kh3/libstdc++6_4.1.1-r16_armv5te.ipk
on_kh3/player_2.1.1-r0_armv5te.ipk