RP6 ROBOT SYSTEM - 4. Programming the RP6
4.7. Example Programs
The CD / Website contains quite a few short example programs, demonstrating the ro-
bot's basic functionality. Most of these examples are quite simple and far away from
optimized solutions. You have to consider most of the progrmas as a starting point for
your own programs. This is absolutely intentional, as this leaves some interesting
tasks up to you – would be quite boring just to load pre-fabricated programs onto the
robot, wouldn't it?
A few example programs focus more or less on experienced users. Especially the be-
haviour controlled robot programs, which allow the robot to simulate an insect's beha-
viour, belong to this category. With one of the example programs, the RP6 behaves
like a moth and searches for bright light sources and avoids obstacles. However ex-
plaining details about this would lead us far beyond the scope of this manual and for
all advanced applications we have to refer to the relevant literature.
Of course you may exchange your own programs with other users through the Inter-
net. The RP6Library and all example programs have been released under the open
source licencse “GPL” (General Public License). This allows modification and publica-
tion of derived programs according to the GPL, which of course implies you must re-
lease your derived programs under the GPL as well.
The AVR Microcontroller family is very popular and there are plenty of example pro-
grams for the MEGA32 available on the Internet already. However you will have to pay
attention to adapt example programs to the RP6 hardware and the RP6Library. Other-
wise programs will be malfunctioning most likely (common problems are different pin
assignments, different use of hardware modules like timers, different clock frequen-
cies, etc.)!
Except for the I²C Bus applications, all example programs have been designed to run
on the robot base unit only – without any expansion modules. Although this will usu-
ally not interfere with anything, you should start using expansion modules only after
you tried out all example programs and got familiar with the robot base unit.
Any programmable expansion kit is delivered with appropriate example programs. Al-
ternative and additional software may also be available on our homepage (example
programs for the RP6 CONTROL M32 are included on the RP6 CD / Website).
By the way, programming of expansion modules like the RP6-M32 or RP6-M256 can be
a bit easier in some cases, as you do not need to care about too critical timing issues
like ACS, motor control and so on.
Additionally the RP6-M32 provides you with a lot of additional CPU power and memory
for more demanding tasks.
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