Robotsystem from Robot Group Leipzig: Documentation of lpzrobots

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# Documentation of lpzrobots

Organization:
  University Leipzig
  Institute for Computer Science
  Dept. Intelligent Systems
  Prof. Dr. Ralf Der
  Research Group Neuroinformatics und Robotic

People:
  Ralf Der, Georg Martius, Frank Hesse, Rene Liebscher, Marcel Kretschmann, Dominic Schneider, Claus Stadler, Frank Güttler

## General

This is a collection of algorithms, simulations, and tools developed by the robot group of the University Leipzig
(http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de). It consists of the following directories (click for details):

- selforg : controllers together with a small framework for using them, developed in the robotic group of Leipzig university yielding at self-organized behaviour for various kinds of machines.
- ode_robots : stuff needed for our ODE-simulations (Open Dynamics Engine, see http://www.ode.org) such as robots, obstacles, utils, our patches and stuff for visualization with OSG (OpenSceneGraph, see http://www.openscenegraph.org)
- matrixlib : comfortable matrix library used for calculations e.g. in our controllers
- gnuplot : tool allowing you to use online gnuplot windows within your program (using pipe for data handover), however guilogger is more comfortable
- guilogger : application that coordinates multiple gnuplot windows and switches channels on or of, data is sent per pipe from your program

## Requirements

You need the following software and libraries installed (Tested on Linux x86 machines)

- ODE see http://www.ode.org and augmented with our patches
- OpenSceneGraph http://www.openscenegraph.org (version >= 0.9.8) (Debian includes it in Etch (Testing) and higher)
- Qt library from http://www.trolltech.com for guilogger (version > 3.0)
- avr-gcc and avr-binutils.
  SuSE packages under: http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/software/
  Debian includes them in Etch (Testing) and higher

## Installation & Startup

- Download source tar ball from http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/software .
- Unpack file.
- Change into `lpzrobots` directory
- Call `make` to compile matrixlib and guilogger (not strictly necessary, only for displaying parameters online)
- Call `make install` to copy `guilogger/bin/guilogger` into the `/bin` folder of your home directory. (If this does not work copy by hand.)
- To start a simulation go into that simulation directory, call `make` and `start`. For example when you want to start the template_onerobot simulation type `cd ode_robots/simulations/template_onerobot`, then call `make` and after successful compilation type `start` to start the simulation
- The following command line options are available (type start -h for the display of this options):
  Usage: start [-g] [-l] [-r SEED] [-x WxH] [-pause] [-notex] [-noshadow] [-h]
  `-g` use guilogger
  `-l` use guilogger with logfile
  `-r` `SEED` use SEED as random number seed
  `-x` `WxH` window size of width(W) x height(H) is used (640x480 default)
  `-pause` start in pause mode
  `-notex` do not display textures
  `-noshadow` do not display shadows
  `-h` display this help
- Have a look at the console after starting the program, there you will find some further information for the usage of the program.
- For starting your own simulation see paragraph "How to Start Your Own Simulation" in ode_robots .
- For a well documented examples of a main.cpp of a simulation and a robot .cpp file click the tab "Examples" at the top of this page.

## Documentation

- This manual can be found at http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/software
- More informations on the used self-organization algorithm is available at http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/research
- The ODE tutorial of Marcel Kretschmann can be found at http://robot.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/students
  (Tar ball with pdf and example code also there available.)
- The original ODE documentation can be found at http://www.ode.org/ode-docs.html
- The OSG documentation can be found at http://www.openscenegraph.org/osgwiki/pmwiki.php/Documentation/Documentation