Drake Robot - User Guide
Plymouth University
Brief History
Previous Robot - PlymBot
By developing the Robot in-house the cost has been dramatically reduced and therefore Plymouth
university has ended up with over 11 for teaching and robot football. Plymouth has the largest team
of our category in the world, although only 3-5 robots are ever used at any international competitions
All the bipedal robots have been built/designed identically, this is to ensure any robot will comply
with competition standards which state, all robots in a team, for every event, MUST be identical to
one another. This prevents “special” robots being used for one event only. Below is how the final
revision of the PlymBot were built.
The PlymBot robot has served Plymouth very well in the past by competing in one of the major robot
competitions, FIRA[Federation of International Robot-soccer Association]. The first significant WIN for
Plymouth University was at FIRA
Taiwan, 2011, where the team
achieved 2 gold medals, and set
two world records in the sprint &
marathon events. Through this
success, the University decided to
grant money for Robot Football
here at Plymouth. This Allowed the
creation of Plymouth Humanoids,
and the new Drake-I Robot
platforms.
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
The PlymBot robot platform was the first robot which was designed and produced in-house here at
Plymouth University, it was develop for both teaching and Robot Football. There have been 5 large
revisions, which initially was based off a basic Robotis Bioloid robot. Slowly it has morphed into the
final revision of the PlymBot (Mk5 – see below), over a 5 year period.
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Since 2011, Plymouth Humanoids have competed
in 6 more major events, and has won another 2
gold, 2 silver, & 1 bronze medal.
The two main competition that take place
annually are;
FIRA – Robotic Olympics, HuroSot League. Which as you a gather, has multiple different events;
Sprint, Marathon, Obstacle Run, Penalty Kick, Soccer (mixed teams), Weightlifting, Lift & Carry,
Basket ball, & Climbing. Has mentioned before, Plymouth currently enter only 4 of these events;
Sprint, Marathon, Soccer, and Obstacle run, However is always open to new events, or
refinement s to current solutions. (All these event rules and more are on the module site)
Robot Football – Why?
For the past 20 years (or so), many research institutes such as Honda, MIT’s walking lab, Virginia
Tech, and even British University like Reading, Bristol & Plymouth have been designing robots with
veering degrees of skills and achievement. What competitions like RoboCup, & FIRA aid to do is
twofold;
1.
2.
Rules & Environment – By narrowing down the environment that robots need to work in,
and giving them a set of rules to follow, such as Football, Sprint, etc… It allows for an easier
more achievable goals/targets.
Bring the great and the good together – By setting up annual tournaments for teams to
compete in and share knowledge with one another. It is also hoped a sense of
competitiveness in the teams accelerates their research, and the overall research in to
bipedal autonomous robots.
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
RoboCup – Humanoids League, Kid Size,
which is primly 3 sided football game. (4sided, 2014). Plymouth was the first UK team
in this division ever, and has qualified &
competed at the last 2 events; Mexico 2012,
Netherlands 2013. The team is now preparing
for the upcoming tournament in Brazil 2013.
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Plymouth Humanoids at RoboCup - Eindhoven, Netherlands 2013
Internet Recourses
Plymouth humanoids – home page
This is the Plymouth Humanoids robot football team website, this the university official site for
publications of the robot team. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/robotfootball
Plymouth humanoids –Facebook & YouTube
These are Plymouth Humanoids social media sites, which are kept up to update,
with all the recent events, photos, and videos for all Plymouth humanoids
achievements. Please go check them out for more understanding of both the team
and the Drake-I & Plymouth Robots. Also please “like” us of Facebook, too get all the
up to date news about the team.
These are the two main site to checkout for all the relevant information on the FIRA competition.
The competition changes hands every year, and each host setup their own website for the
competition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_of_International_Robot-soccer_Association
http://fira.net/
RoboCup - Humanoid League – Home page
This is the Main site use every year for the “Humanoid League”- please subscribe to the mailing this
to get the most up to date information on rules, and registration.
http://www.tzi.de/humanoid/bin/view/Website/WebHome
Also visit - RoboCup, Brazil 2014 - http://www.robocup2014.org/
Plymouth Humanoids with all their friends at RoboCup - Eindhoven, Netherlands 2013
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
FIRA (Federation of International Robot-soccer Association)
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Introduction to Drake-I
The Drake-I Robot, came out the research done here at Plymouth. The robot itself only features one
similar part/component (RX-28/Mx-28 Servo’s) to its predecessor, PlymBot. All other parts,
electronics, and software have been design various people who have even work, or studied here at
Plymouth.
Map
3D Head
Webcam C615
Drake Body-kit
Wifi Dongle
Themis
Fans
Odroid-X2
Lipo Battery
RX/MX-28 Servo
Parts & Components
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
RX28/MX-28 Servo
Odriod-X2
Wifi dongle
Tartarus
Themis – IMU
C615 Webcam
Micro Fans
Drake Body Kit
Hex Screws
- 20x Robotis strong (24kg/cm) daisy chained servos (MX-28 – robot football only)
- Quad Core 1.4Ghz, 2 GB RAM, eMMc Boot, Etc.. From HardKernal
- 2.4Ghz, Long range & storage single (Large aerial), From HardKernal
- Plymouth designed & built, using 32Mhz Atmel Microchip.
- Plymouth designed & built, 6 axis, using military grade silicon sensing gyro’s
- Logitech HD 1080p, 8 Megapixels, USB2.0.
- Mini (15x15mm) 9v PC case fans, used to cool robots body.
- 27x Different 1.2/2mm T5 aluminum body kit, make by APE Systems
- 400+ hex screw per robot (various sizes)
o
o
o
Cables
Lipo Battery
3D Head
- 23x 3 & 4 pin COMMs cable.
- 1x 11.1V, 3 cell, Zippy Compact, 1300mAh
- 3D Printed, using the Makerbot, Plymouth designed.
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
Tartarus
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What’s in the box?
Note Book
Each robot will come with a small note book. This note book should contain any faults that are know
with the robot, and or, any recent fixes to the hardware & software. When using robots, if that fault
occurs, please note it down in the book. For example “ Screw fallen out – small hex screw, right knee
servo. solution-> have told Clare.” . Please tell Clare Simpson of ANY faults so they can be fixed
straight away.
Ethernet & USB Extender Cable
The USB Extender cable is used for debugging the Tartarus board, which is the microcontroller on the
robots back. It is a male – female, 2 meter, black cable. . Please ensure it is returned safely in the box,
with the robot.
Atmel ICE3 Programmer
This programmer is used to reprogram the Tartarus board on the robots
back. This programmer works with “ATMEL 6”, which is a IDE program
use to develop C & C++ programs for Atmel’s range of microcontrollers.
Here at Plymouth we use this software to develop our “Robot
Framework”, specifically the area known as “Hades”. Please ensure it is
returned safely in the box, with the robot.
Batteries
All the Drake-I have been design to use Li-polymer
batteries, which (ones we use) have a voltage from
11.1V – 14.5V depending on how charged they are. The
voltage of these batteries WILL affect the walking/gait of
your robot, and once close to depleted, your robot will
probably fall over, or very unreliably.
To recharge the battery, please either uses the Robotis
Blue Charge supplied in the robot case, Or given to Arron/Clare for recharging.
Mains
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
The Ethernet cable in the box is the main interface with the robots brain,
the Odriod-x2. It is a straight patch, 5meter, blue cable. Please ensure it is
returned safely in the box, with the robot.
For the main use / development / testing of the robots, they should be using mains power. There
should be a main adaptor for the CM700 in the robot case, this adaptor connects to the main power
supply for the Robotis Charger (2.5mm Jack) and to the Tartarus battery socket.
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Plymouth Humanoids Framework
Framework – overview
Olympus is the higher
level area of the
framework. Which
controls the vision
detection, kinematic
feedback, UDP
Communication, and
the Strategy modules
Hermes is the
Comms level which
is shared between
both the higher
and lower
framework
Hades is the lower
level area of the
framework, which
fundamentally
continuous controls/
get feedback from all
the servo, and sensor
on the robot.
Software & Code
This platform requires the use of the following software for fully autonomous running:
PU – Drake Robot – User Guide
The main research project undertaken by the robot football research is the creation and the ongoing
development of a Plymouth Robot Framework. The framework is a software/code architecture that
defines the layout and the functionality of the robot , the diagram below shows the structure:
Third party software:
PuTTY terminal
QTcreator
OpenCV
RoboPlus Terminal
Atmel Studio 6
(SSH Ethernet terminal, allow remote access between two PC’s)
(Code IDE, with c, c++ compiler and Libraries, on the Odroid-X2 )
(open source vision libraries, by willow garage )
(Serial COMs GUI, for downloading .Hex file to the CM700)
(Atmel GUI for programming the Tartarus, with the “Hades” code)
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Plymouth Framework:
RoboController
FIRAPlayer
(Robot Gait Control, for testing gait, pose editing, and calibrating robot)
(“Higher level” vision & strategy code, autonomously controlling the robot)