Roombex is an attempt to write a library for controlling the roomba via their serial interface. I'm not aiming for a complete implementation of the interface but rather enough to navigate and get feed back from the bot. It should be fairly easy to add commands, so if someone is interested in completely implementing the sci spec send a pull request.
The app is primarily written in Elixir with a small c program for talking to the serial port, which elixir interacts with via a port. The inspiration for this port was this post.
I have run this on both ubuntu and arch, I run arch primarily but used ubuntu a little with the cloud nine ide. It compiles in both and runs, but can't speak to other OSs. This primarily designed to to run on raspberry pi, but there is no reason at the moment why it can't be run from a laptop with a some serial device to communicate with the roomba. My goal was to have it self contained on the roomba in a small form factor and the raspberry pi 2 seems to be plenty for now to run it.
I have ported the cport over to rust. The rust port is cross compilled following the instructions here. The make file assume cross64 script is in the path. I cross compile using an ubuntu image. Also note that debug statements may look a bit different than listed below, but that's all that should be different.
The make file will produce an arm binary for the raspberry pi and will move it to priv_dir which is where Roombex expects to find the port. This binary is checked in for convenience.
While this is targeted toward raspberry pi for my purposes, there is no reason you can't compile the rust port and use it on your machine. Instead of using the make file, navigate to the rust_src directory, and run cargo build (I assume you have rust installed). Once built copy the binary to the priv_dir and you can use it on your machine. This means the instruction below for socat and such can be done on your local box if you desire, and if have a serial port connection to a roomba it would work just as well. There is nothing so far written that dictates this must be on a raspberry pi.
If you are running locally I recommend using socat or some serial emulator if you want to test it so I run the following from the command line before running the app:
socat -d -d pty,raw,echo=0 pty,raw,echo=0 &
[1] 14132
2015/05/28 21:13:05 socat[14132] N PTY is /dev/pts/1
2015/05/28 21:13:05 socat[14132] N PTY is /dev/pts/2
2015/05/28 21:13:05 socat[14132] N starting data transfer loop with FDs [5,5] and [7,7]and you can see below the output of the command. it sets up a pair of virtual devices /dev/pts/1 and /dev/pts/2 and I typically issue the command to run in the back ground as it needs to stay running. Please look up socat for more information.
Then I launch a terminal with minicom -D /dev/pts/2 (in this case /dev/pts/2 - your ports may differ) to monitor what Roombex sends to the serial port.
The device name for Roombex to use can be configured in the mix file like so (please look at mix file for more detail)
def application do
[applications: [:logger],
# first item in list is the device name
# second is the baudrate
mod: {Roombex, ["/dev/pts/1", "115200"]}] # /dev/pts/1 is used here in the example
end
Once done run Roombex like below (actual return values will differ, the output is based on the cport not the rust port)
iex -S mix
... (ommited compiler output)
20:47:02.113 [debug] created port
20:47:02.114 [debug] received - ok
an elixir shell is now running, and you should see two debug messages indicating the port was created and the port sent back an ok to indicate that it was able to open the device specified.
The main module to use is the Roombex.Pilot module which has a do_commands function. This function takes a list of commands which take the form of an atom for simple commands and struct for more complex ones. I'm currently working on sensor commands to get sensor data back from the roomba.
Currently the commands supported are (based on the SCI, the older commands):
:start -- must be issued to start talking to the roomba
:control_mode -- must be issued to take control of the roomba
:safe_mode -- puts roomba in safe mode, can be controlled but stops if safety sensors are triggered (i.e cliff sensor)
:full_mode -- puts roomba in full mode, complete control not safety sensors are checked
:power -- turns of roomba
%Drive{speed: [value], angle: [value]} -- drive roomba, speed can be between +/- 500, angle can be between +/- 2000
or one of these three atoms: :straight, :clockwise, :counter_clockwise which
are used to make it more readable than the raw values
%Sleep{val: [value]} -- used internally to provide a delay between commands in the list value is in ms
So lets say one wants move the roomba forward at max speed for 5 seconds, turn clockwise in place for one second and back up for a second and stop. You know, cause why not...
iex -S mix
20:47:02.113 [debug] created port
20:47:02.114 [debug] received - ok
iex(1)> Roombex.Pilot.do_commands [:start, :control_mode, :safe_mode] # only need to run once when you start the app
21:55:00.124 [debug] sending command :start
21:55:00.124 [debug] sending command :control_mode
21:55:00.125 [debug] sending command :safe_mode
21:55:00.128 [debug] received - ok
21:55:00.129 [debug] received - ok
21:55:00.132 [debug] received - ok
iex(2)> Roombex.Pilot.do_commands [%Drive{speed: 500, angle: :straight}, %Sleep{val: 5000}, %Drive{speed: 500, angle: :clockwise}, %Sleep{val: 1000}, %Drive{speed: -500, angle: :straight}, %Sleep{val: 1000}, %Drive{speed: 0, angle: :straight}]
21:55:44.398 [debug] sending command %Drive{angle: :straight, speed: 500}
21:55:44.398 [debug] sleeping for 5000
21:55:44.400 [debug] received - ok
21:55:49.445 [debug] sending command %Drive{angle: :clockwise, speed: 500}
21:55:49.445 [debug] sleeping for 1000
21:55:49.447 [debug] received - ok
21:55:50.469 [debug] sending command %Drive{angle: :straight, speed: -500}
21:55:50.469 [debug] sleeping for 1000
21:55:50.475 [debug] received - ok
21:55:51.498 [debug] sending command %Drive{angle: :straight, speed: 0}
21:55:51.500 [debug] received - ok