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Here we have the 'Robot Control PC', this is the computer that will be controlling the
motion of the robot, right now we're just using a regular computer to represent it.
This is interfaced with an Arduino Uno; here is the Arduino Uno; the Arduino Uno controls
this pan and tilt mechanism which consists of two servo motors - one here and one here
- which allow this little webcam to pan and tilt to observe its surroundings. This webcam
is also interfaced to the same robot control PC. The other PC that we are using is over
here, and this is the 'User PC'. The User PC is the remotely located PC that is used
by the user who wants to be virtually present somewhere else. This is the PC that has the
Creative Gesture Recognition Camera interfaced with it.
I'll be running RobotControl.exe, which will be used to control the Telepresence Robot.
As you can see, the command prompt asks the user to enter the COM port number of the Arduino.
Int his case, our pan and tilt mechanism is interfaced to COM port number 3 of the PC.
In case the user has no access to an Arduino, he may choose to enter 'x'.
But since we have interfaced the mechanism to the PC, I will enter 3. Now that we're
connected, we can run the program at the user end.
Now that we have got the robot.. Now that we have got the RobotControl.exe
running on the Robot Control PC, we can start running the Natural Telepresence.exe program
on the user's PC. Here we have.. I double click on Natural Telepresence.
The first thing it asks for is the IP address of the robot. I know the IP address of the
Robot Control PC, so I'll enter it here. It's initialized the connection to the robot,
it's connecting to the camera, it;s now asking me to look steadily at the screen to calibrate
the steady position. Now calibrating left position. Right Position. Up position. Down
position. It now asks me to press 'S' to start the program, after which the position of my
head will control the position of the remotely located robot's head.
We are now going to start running Skype on both the Remote ..uuh..the User PC and the
Robot PC.
Arun and I have now setup a Skype video chat with each other. The camera being used at
the Robot PC's end is the small webcam mounted on the pan and tilt mechanism. At my end,
the user's end I am using the integrated webcam of my laptop. We will now run..we will now
resume our Natural Telepresence application. It has completed calibration and I am now
pressing 'S' (in capital) to the command line interface to start. This GUI represents the
current state of my head as being detected by the program. So if I want to move up the
'up' arrow glows and over there you can see that the robot is conversely moving. I want
to move down, so I look downwards, and you can see that the robot is also moving downwards.
If I want this robot to stop moving and maintain its position, I just have to look straight.
Say, I want the robot to move to its right now, so I turn to my right.
Alright so let's look around the lab with the natural telepresence app. Arun is holding
the camera with the pan and tilt mechanism. Here you can see the GUI output of the Natural
Telepresence app which is detecting my head as I move it and this is Skype. I'm being
able to see the camera of the robot through Skype. So..say I want to look at what's to
my left, I look a little to my left and here we wave..I'm looking at myself..so I want
to go to my right. The robot is moving to its right and then I stop it. I look steadily
at the screen and the robot maintains its position. Coming back to the view from here,
say I want to move a little bit to my left. I want to look a little downwards at the floor
and so I move my head down and the robot starts moving downwards. Ok I want to stop now. Now
I want to move back up, stop there, look a little to my right and stop and that's it.