WHERE IS ALL THE STUFF
There is a dropbox on the computers with all the project files. The dropbox account is delvecchiodropbox@gmail.com with password delvecchio. You can also find all the TEA files (Brainstem folder) used in all the projects in this lab. If you need to find something else, the best way to it is to turn on the old computers: they have a lot of files used in the past. If you need to change something inside the TEA files, please talk with Domitilla first. If your changes are not correctly, you can burn the components (brainstem and h-bridge).
The code for the camera system is already inside all the computers. Remember that you have to select "user" to enter correctly in computer 0. You will find the folder "camera_programs" on the desktop and then all the code used in different project.
The code for the cars is already there as well. The folder is ~/Desktop/brainstem/aProject/Disturbance_carx where x is the number of the car. Since the code is working well, if you need to make some changes please think about them carefully, specially if you are going to change the coefficients of the control system.
If you need to replace some hardware parts, they are in the cupboard near the windows. You can find there new brainstem modules, new H-bridge, cables, etc. There are a lot of electrical components and new batteries too. A new car has also been bought to have new plastic parts for the cars. To avoid breakage:
1. Follow the instructions to turn on the cars (ALWAYS).
2. While you are running the experiments, look at the computers that runs the CPS for the camera system so you can stop the run if the tracking has been lost. If you don't do it, the car will hit the wall.
LAB WIKI CHANGES
I cannot edit the lab wiki page (https://wikis.mit.edu/confluence/display/DelVecchioLab/Lab+Documentation
) directly so I am using this section to add changes.
1. TEA FILES. You don't have to compile the library RoboCar_Lib.tea and you don't have to load it in 4 2.
2. NEW CAR MOTOR SETTINGS (car 4, 5, 6). I put the videos for this in the dropbox.
3. LINKS. You cannot access to all the links in that page, so you probably find a way to do this.
INFORMATIONS ABOUT THE PROJECT
The paths in this project are stored in fig8A.txt and fig8B.txt. (Note: there may be different versions of these; the correct one should have 1327 2307 as the first line in fig8A.txt.) Also, I have been using fig8C.txt, which is fig8B.txt backwards, because there are issues with the positioning system switching between cameras in one direction but not the next. Supposedly, the corrected data in myStances[] is used for the path follower for better individual accuracy to follow the paths, while carStances[] contains the "official" positions of all the cars, so that they all use the same data in their path-following algorithm.
In the current code, the cars start moving along the two paths. At each normal time-step, if the projected positions of the cars are safe, then the velocity controller sustains the car's speed at the speed measured throughout the past time-step. Note that this does not effectively keep the car's speed constant throughout the run, but it keeps the normal acceleration close to 0, which is all that is needed. Also in each time-step, the positions of the cars are projected 1 sec. forward, and the code checks whether the projected positions are in the capture set. If so, the supervisor finds an acceleration for the current positions. If the supervisor cannot find a solution for the current positions either (which shouldn't happen in theory in an ideal situation, but during a real experiment the position of the cars can jump suddenly into the capture set), then the supervisor uses the previously found solution.
Still to be worked on: any better way to handle situations in which the cars suddenly jump into capture set? Currently, it seems that the capture set changes rapidly, because the measurement of speed is not precise and jumps a lot.