andrei91ro / lulu_kilobot_c

Kilobot robot controller modelled using a P/XP colony, written in C

Kilobot robot controller modelled using a P/XP colony, written in C

This C application allows for the control of a Kilobot robot using P colonies.

This application has two distinct parts: (1) a PC simulation using the Kilombo simulator and (2) a firmware generation component that can be used to control real robots. Both components use the same C source code.

Requirements

• Compilers:
  • GCC - for simulations on a computer
  • AVR-GCC - for building a firmware file (Intel hex) that can be used on real Kilobot robots
• Libraries
  • Lulu_pcol_sim_C - includes the P/XP colony execution framework
  • Kilolib - for interfacing with the Kilobot robot
  • Kilombo - for building a standalone simulation application for the entire Kilobot swarm, that uses the same C code as the real robots
• Lulu_C - Python 3 conversion script used to translate Lulu text input files to C source code
• Make - for an automated build process

The build process was tested on an up-to-date Linux distribution (ArchLinux). The build should work on most unixes and on Windows using packages such as MinGW.

The Kilombo library has other library dependencies that have to be resolved.

Usage

Build process

After installing all components and adjusting the corresponding paths (using Makefile parameters), simply execute the following list of commands, in the project folder:

mkdir build build_hex

make

It is important to ensure that both Lulu_pcol_sim_C and Lulu_C use the same branch (i.e master or initialize_progmem) as Lulu_kilobot. Different branches are not compatible.

If no errors are reported during compilation, the build folders should contain, among others, the following files:

• build
  • lulu_kilobot
• build_hex
  • lulu_kilobot.hex

lulu_kilobot can be executed as a PC application (Kilombo simulation) and will run the P colony based robot controller specified in the LULU_INSTANCE_FILE Makefile parameter, by default the dispersion from nearby neighbors.

The build_hex folder contains the Intel Hex file required for flashing real Kilobot robots.

The default example P colony, input_files/test_disperse.lulu is a dispersion algorithm where robots move randomly if there are neighbors closer than a pre-specified range.

Using a different controller input file

When changing or updating the Lulu P colony input file, the build tree must be cleaned and then the controller has to be rebuilt:

make clean && make

Configuration

Debug level

This parameter controls the verbosity of the Lulu_kilobot controller. The accepted values are:

• 0 (DEBUG)
• 1 (INFO)
• 2 (RELEASE) - no messages are printed

API Documentation

More detailed information can be found on the project documentation page.

Authors

Andrei George Florea, Cătălin Buiu

Department of Automatic Control And Systems Engineering,

Politehnica University of Bucharest

Bucharest, Romania.