Python Robotics Simulator

This is a simple, portable robot simulator developed by Student Robotics. Some of the arenas and the exercises have been modified for the Research Track I course

Installing and running

The simulator requires a Python 2.7 installation, the pygame library, PyPyBox2D, and PyYAML.

Assignemnt #01

To run the script in the simulator, use run.py, passing it the file names.

There is a file containing the the solution of the first assignment assignment1.py I've commented all the instructions inside the file and briefly explain each step

When done, you can run the program with:

$ python run.py assignment1.py

Flowchart

Here is the flowchart of the program logic. In this flowchart whole logic of the main program has been in the form of blocks. So that anyone can easily understand the logic of the proposed code.

FlowChart.png.odg

Possible Suggestions

We can improve the logic of the program which I proposed, in different ways We can improve the movements of the robot like if it detect the golden token, it turns but it see golden token all around it which tend the robot turn and takes too much time.So, we can improve its logic by tunning it.

Robot API

The API for controlling a simulated robot is designed to be as similar as possible to the SR API.

Motors

The simulated robot has two motors configured for skid steering, connected to a two-output Motor Board. The left motor is connected to output 0 and the right motor to output 1.

The Motor Board API is identical to that of the SR API, except that motor boards cannot be addressed by serial number. So, to turn on the spot at one quarter of full power, one might write the following:

R.motors[0].m0.power = 25
R.motors[0].m1.power = -25

The Grabber

The robot is equipped with a grabber, capable of picking up a token which is in front of the robot and within 0.4 metres of the robot's centre. To pick up a token, call the R.grab method:

success = R.grab()

The R.grab function returns True if a token was successfully picked up, or False otherwise. If the robot is already holding a token, it will throw an AlreadyHoldingSomethingException.

To drop the token, call the R.release method.

Cable-tie flails are not implemented.

Vision

To help the robot find tokens and navigate, each token has markers stuck to it, as does each wall. The R.see method returns a list of all the markers the robot can see, as Marker objects. The robot can only see markers which it is facing towards.

Each Marker object has the following attributes:

• info: a MarkerInfo object describing the marker itself. Has the following attributes:
  • code: the numeric code of the marker.
  • marker_type: the type of object the marker is attached to (either MARKER_TOKEN_GOLD, MARKER_TOKEN_SILVER or MARKER_ARENA).
  • offset: offset of the numeric code of the marker from the lowest numbered marker of its type. For example, token number 3 has the code 43, but offset 3.
  • size: the size that the marker would be in the real game, for compatibility with the SR API.
• centre: the location of the marker in polar coordinates, as a PolarCoord object. Has the following attributes:
  • length: the distance from the centre of the robot to the object (in metres).
  • rot_y: rotation about the Y axis in degrees.
• dist: an alias for centre.length
• res: the value of the res parameter of R.see, for compatibility with the SR API.
• rot_y: an alias for centre.rot_y
• timestamp: the time at which the marker was seen (when R.see was called).

For example, the following code lists all of the markers the robot can see:

markers = R.see()
print "I can see", len(markers), "markers:"
for m in markers:
    if m.info.marker_type in (MARKER_TOKEN_GOLD, MARKER_TOKEN_SILVER):
        print " - Token {0} is {1} metres away".format( m.info.offset, m.dist )
    elif m.info.marker_type == MARKER_ARENA:
        print " - Arena marker {0} is {1} metres away".format( m.info.offset, m.dist )