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Overview

Revision as of 15:33, 19 November 2013 by Alexalspach (Talk | contribs)

Contents

Wiki Structure

The Allegro Dog Wiki is broken up into separate sections, or categories, to help in locating necessary information quickly and easily. Below you can see the top-level parent categories, the hierarchical structure and articles each category contains.


More Information: About this Wiki


Booting the Allegro Dog

Multiple steps must be taken to properly and safely boot up and run the Allegro Dog internal computer and hardware. The following instructions should be followed closely. If you need any help, please contact us.

Note Refer to the Control-I/O Panel diagram for switch, button and indicator locations.


Power Required

1.

Supply 24V to the Allegro Dog using either either external or battery power.

The Allegro Dog runs on 24VDC, and under normal conditions draws no more than 20 amps. The current required varies greatly with the algorithm and application. The dog can be powered via external power supplies or by multiple internal and external batteries.


Note When power is supplied to the power management system it will automatically turn on without any further action from the user. It is only powered off when the power supply is removed. Powering the internal computer and motor controllers requires further action.


More Information: Power Required

Main Power Switch

2.

Flip the main power switch to enable internal computer power and the 5V, 12V and 12V/B power lines.

The main power switch controls the supply of power to then entire Allegro Dog system. To use the internal computer, motor controllers / motors or 24V/B, 12V and 5V internal power sources, this switch must be switched ON.

Note Upon flipping this switch, the 24V/B, 12V and 5V internal power sources will become active. The internal computer, as well as the motor controllers and motors will remain unpowered until manually powered on by the user.

Note Turning this switch off will kill power to the entire Allegro Dog system no matter the status. Both the computer and motors / motor controllers, as well as any other device powered by the power management system, will lose power immediately.


Available directly off of the Allegro Dog's internal power management system are 24V/B, 12V and 5V internal power sources.

More Information: Main Power Switch, Internal Power Sources, Control-I/O Panels

Computer

3.

Press the PC Power Switch button to boot up the internal computer.

Internal Computer
The Allegro Dog's internal computer is an Advantech MIO-5290 single board computer (SBC).
External Computer
The Allegro Dog can be controlled in realtime using an external computer with RoboticsLab™ and RealtimeRobotics™ installed via CAN interface.

More Information: Computer, Control-I/O Panels

Emergency Stop

4.

Make sure the emergency stop is released so that the motor controllers can be powered on.

The emergency stop switch kills the 24V/A supply of power to the motor controllers and motors. The switch affects nothing else in the system. When triggered, the computer and any other devices supplied by the 24V/B, 12V or 5V internal power sources will remain active.

Note When turning on the 24V/A power, make sure the emergency switch is up.

More Information: Emergency Stop, Control-I/O Panels

Motor Controller Power

5.

Press the Motor Controller Power Switch (or use the remote) to enable the 24V/A motor controller power line.

The motor controllers and motors are powered via the power management system's 24V/A output. Power to the motor controllers can be turned on using the Motor Controller/Motor Power Switch (No. 8 on the Control-I/O Panels) or the wireless remote.

Note If the motor controllers lose power for any reason, you must shut down and restart the control software to reestablish CAN communication.

More Information: Motor Controller Power, Control-I/O Panels

Remote Connection

6.

Connect to the dog's internal computer.

Template:Remote Connection Intro

Running the Included Software

7.

Run the included control software tools/test GUI.

  1. Double click the XXXX Allegro Dog Controller.
  2. Double click the other shortcut GUI
  3. In the Comman Prompt, press the tab key to connect to and initialize the motor controllers
  4. {{TODO}


  • RoboticsLab™ Runtime
  • RealtimeRobotics
  • Device Drivers and Implementation (CAN, IMU, etc.)
  • Simulation Application
  • Realtime Control Application
  • Sample Controller w/ Simple Walking Algorithm
  • Homing Controller

TODO: Something!


Homing

8.

Raise the dog, Straighten the legs and perform homing procedure to gather relative encoder offsets.

When the Allegro Dog is first powered on a simple homing procedure must be executed to find the offsets necessary for the incremental (relative) encoders at each joint. This procedure must be followed before the joints can be properly and safely controlled.

The homing procedure slowly jogs each of the 12 joints until a homing sensor is activated and deactivated. The angular displacement between the start of this procedure and the sensor activation is used to determine the offset necessary to properly locate each joint's zero position.


Note Every time the Allegro Dog is powered on (every time the motor controllers lose and regain power), the joint offsets must be found again using the homing procedure.

More Information: Homing

Enable Motor Control

9.

Press ENABLE on the GUI to enable torque-PD control of the motors.

Ready Position

10.

Press READY on the GUI to assume the ready-to-walk position.

Walk Around

11.

Lower the dog to the floor then press HOP to begin walking in place.

If stably walking in place, you may then press WALK or WALK BACKWARD to move in either direction or STOP to stop moving. When not moving, you may push BASE UP or BASE DOWN to raise or lower the base, respectively.

Note The dog may not walk as stably with the base higher or lower than the starting position.

Software

The Allegro Dog comes pre-installed with SimLab's RoboticsLab™ and the RealtimeRobotics™ realtime add-on. This allows you develop Allegro Dog controllers and test them on the system in hard real time.


To facilitate the productivity of robotics researchers and engineers, RoboticsLab™ aims at providing systematic support for the whole spectrum of development from prototyping to the robust control of hardware systems. Every aspect of our software and its use has been examined from the viewpoint of the robotics engineer, greatly reducing the need for specialized knowledge in the low-level details.

RealtimeRobotics™ is a RoboticsLab™ Premium Add-on which implements a commercial RTOS-based real-time control framework for RoboticsLab™.

More Information: Software, RoboticsLab, RealtimeRobotics, Allegro Dog VS Project

Hardware

The hardware section of the Allegro Dog wiki includes mechanical and electrical system information as well as assembly and maintenance information.

More Information: Hardware

Component Overview

The drawings contained in this section point out the high-level components of the Allegro Dog.

More Information: Component Overview

Kinematic Information

Joint Limits

Link and Joint Dimensions

Dynamic Information

Link Masses

Link COMs

Link Inertia

Joint Locking

Joints can be locked into a stable "kneeling" position for storage or shipping.

More Information: Joint Locking

Mechanical Drawings

Drawing_Isometric.pdf Drawing_Orthographic.pdf

Click here to see all Orthographic Drawings.

Computer Specs

Power

External Power Requirements

Power Management System

Available Outputs

Batteries

Specifications

Charging

CAN Communication

Maintenance