Personable Robotics

Breathing Life Into Machines

Prerequisites

• ABB robot with Externally Guided Motion [3124-1] option installed.
• See abb_egm_hello_world for detailed guidance on how to set up real-time control of ABB robots from an external PC.

EGM Server API

Message Address	Arg Format	Description
/enable	bool	Toggle follow motion target on/off for all robots.
/motion/reset	int	Motion target reset for Robot {index}. Reset defaults to a normalized coordinate of (0.5, 0.8, 0,5) within the safety bounds.
/motion/pos	int, float, float, float	Motion target position {x, y} for Robot {index} (normalized coordinate). World target position is calculated based on the safety bounds.
/motion/rot	int, float, float, float	Motion target orientation {rx, ry, rz} for Robot {index} (in degrees).
/motion/rot/rx	int, float	Motion target x-axis rotation {rx} for Robot {index} (normalized range from [0, 1] to [-180, 180] degrees). Other rotation axes set to 0.
/motion/rot/ry	int, float	Motion target y-axis rotation {ry} for Robot {index} (normalized range from [0, 1] to [-180, 180] degrees). Other rotation axes set to 0.
/motion/rot/rz	int, float	Motion target z-axis rotation {rz} for Robot {index} (normalized range from [0, 1] to [-180, 180] degrees). Other rotation axes set to 0.
/bounds/pos	int, float, float, float	Safety bounds position {x, y} of the center of the safety boundary (in meters), relative to the base of Robot {index}. bounds.pos.z value is auto-calculated based on bounds.height to maintain minimum distance from the ground.
/bounds/width	int, float	Safety bounds width of Robot {index} safety boundary (in meters).
/bounds/height	int, float	Safety bounds height of Robot {index} safety boundary (in meters).
/bounds/depth	int, float	Safety bounds depth of Robot {index} safety boundary (in meters).

Templates

The templates folder has basic templates for communicating over OSC to the EGM Server, including Processing, Grasshopper, and TouchOSC.

TouchOSC

TouchOSC is an easy-to-use interface builder that can send and receive OSC messages from multiple sources. It's the quickest way to build your own interactive touch interface on your desktop, phone, or tablet — plus it's supported on nearly every operating system: Windows / macOS / Linux / iOS / Android / RasPi.

We can use TouchOSC to talk to the EGM Sever:

Setup

1. Download TouchOSC for your platform here.

The desktop version is free.

2. Open TouchOSC and configure your network settings.

3. Open a template file in TouchOSC and press the play button to start running the file.
4. Press the dot in the upper right corner to close the file.

Notes

• Tested on TouchOSC 1.2.7.190
• TouchOSC User Manual

Processing

Processing is a creative coding platform for sketching with code.

We can use Processing and the third-party library oscP5 to talk to the EGM Sever:

Setup

1. Download and install Processing.
2. Download and install oscP5 following these instructions.
3. Copy controller_template.pde into your Processing Sketchbook.
4. Configure your network settings:

6. Press play and run.

Python

Python is a powerful and flexible programming language. We can use Python and the third-party library python-osc to talk to the EGM Server:

Setup

1. Download and install Python.
2. Install the python-osc library using pip:

pip install python-osc

3. Run the controller_template.py script from command line with the following arguments:

python controller_template <ip_address> <port>

Example:

python controller_template "192.168.1.138" 55556

Grasshopper

See example of 2D normalization.

Examples

egm_example_mouse2D

This example updates the position of one robot's motion target when hovering, and enables/disables motion on mousePressed.

egm_example_physics2D

This example updates the position of one robot's motion target based on the position of a physics-enabled box that you can throw around the canvas.

Notes

• Tested on Processing 4.3, oscP5 0.9.8, and controlP5 2.2.5