Edit the robot look or behavour

The behaviour of your robot is described in a configuration file that tells:

its list of actuators (motors)
its list of sensors

Open and edit the configuration file

If you need to customize your robot (e.g. add a new motor) you will need to edit this configuraiton file so that Pypot knows your change and allows you to take control over your new component.

This is an advanced technique and may break your robot software, be careful (fortunately you can always go back).

First open the configuration file, according to your situation:

Situation 1: Your robot is running a Raspberry Pi

Connect to your robot through SSH and open the configuration file of your robot:

ssh poppy@poppy.local    # Use password "poppy"
nano ~/dev/poppy_ergo_jr/poppy_ergo_jr.py

You can now edit it (see below).

Situation 2: Your robot is connected to your computer in USB

In that case your own computer is driving the motors, in that case you can either:

provide a new configuration file by using r = pypot.from_json("path/to/my/configuration/file.json") instead of r = PoppyTorso() (only for Python users)
edit the configuration file of the Python library of your robot. This path is different according to the way you installed the software. Some Linux users may find it in ~/.local/lib/python3.9/site-packages/poppy_ergo_jr/configuration/poppy_ergo_jr.json

Some usecases

Add a new motor

Add the following fields to your configuration file and customize the name, model, id, and limits of your added motor:

  "motors": {
    "my_custom_motor": {
      "offset": 0.0,
      "type": "XL-320",
      "id": 90,
      "angle_limit": [
        -150.0,
        150.0
      ],
      "orientation": "direct"
    },
    "m1": {
      [...]

Supported motor models are MX-106, MX-64, MX-28, MX-12, AX-12, AX-18, RX-24, RX-28, RX-64, XL-320, SR-RH4D, EX-106. Their derivates (e.g. MX-28AT) are also supported, but in that case you must specify the regular motor name (e.g. MX-28).

Make sure you do not make any syntax error and save your file. Then your new motor will be controlled as any other motor in pypot.

Add a sensor

Here, we are showing how to enable human face detection via the primitive face_detector that is already implemented in your robot but not enabled by default (because it uses CPU):

  "sensors": {
    "face_detector": {
      "type": "FaceDetector",
      "cameras": ["camera"],
      "freq": 1.0,
      "cascade": "/home/poppy/pyenv/lib/python3.7/site-packages/cv2/data/haarcascade_frontalface_alt.xml",
      "need_robot" : true
      },
    "marker_detector": {
      [..]

Then restart your robot. The primitive is now usable in Python via poppy.face_detector like any other primitive.

Use a different serial port / Use a different FTDI such as U2D2

FTDI devices are components in charge of the conversion of USB signals into serial signals. The USB2AX (for AX and MX motors) and the Pixl board (for Raspberry Pi) are the official FTDI devices shipped with your Poppy robots.

Robotis also sells the U2D2 device that is compatible with multiple connections (TTL and RS-485).

All Poppy robots and pypot are compatible with U2D2 but require hardware and software changes:

hardware changes

JST connectors may be different for the U2D2 and the motors your are using. As soon as they are compatible with TTL protocol, you can connect your motor bus to the TTL port of the U2D2, using Dupont cables.

Connect GND to GND
Connect Data to Data
The center pin (+12V power) is not used by U2D2, you must power the motors with a 12V power supply (e.g. SMPS2Dynamixel)

Warning: make sure that you do not swap wires

Software changes in the configuration file

Switch "sync_read": true to "sync_read": false, (because U2D2 is only compatible with BULK reads)
Change "port": "/dev/ttyAMA0" for "port": "/dev/ttyUSB0" because Linux kernel identifies U2D2 as USB0

Then reboot your Raspberry Pi or reconnect to your robot.

Edit the robot look or behaviour