Robbie detail

Introduction

The RP6 System Manual

The manual will describe the RP6, programming the RP6 and the dedicated system software

We need to assume that you have a basic working knowledge of computers, using the operating systems, Windows or Linux and standard software packages such as a file manager, web browser, unpacker (WinZip, WinRAR, unzip, etc.) and if relevant e.g. the Linux-Shell.
If you are not familiar with using computers, you should prepare yourself to acquire basic knowledge in this field before starting to operate the RP6! It is not possible to provide an introduction course in computer usage in the manual, as this topic is out of its scope.
( RP6 System MANUAL - English )

WinAVR - for Windows (http://winavr.sourceforge.net/)

WinAVR (pronounced “whenever”) is a package of useful and required tools for software development with AVR microcontrollers in the C-language. Apart from GCC for AVR target (which is called "AVR-GCC", more infos on this follow later on), WinAVR also provides a comfortable source code editor called "Programmers Notepad 2", which will also be used for software development for RP6. WinAVR is a privately organized project and the package is freely available on Internet for everyone. New releases and further information may be found on the official project website

The WinAVR installer can be found on the CD

The I²C Bus
The extremely popular I²C Bus, designed by Philips Semiconductors during the eighties and nineties, is used in a great number of electronic equipment, e.g. video recorders, televisions, but also in industrial systems. Most of the modern PCs and notebooks use a variant of this bus called SMBus to control air flow and temperature of the internal devices. A great number of robots also uses the I²C Bus system and for this reason a number of sensor modules like ultrasonic sensors, electronic compasses,temperature sensors and similar devices are available on the market.

The data sheets and manuals for these I²C components are mostly available on the respective manufacturers web sites, however where a component is available from RobotstoreUK.com we will provide all the available literature for that component.

AVR-GCC, avr-libc and avr-binutils - for Linux
Installing avr-gcc in Linux environments may become a little bit more complicated. A few distributions already provide the required packages, but often the packages contain obsolete releases without some of the required patches. Most likely you will have to compile and install new versions.

We cannot refer to details for each of the countless Linux distributions, such as SuSE, Ubuntu, RedHat/Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware, Mandriva etc. varying in versions and all their quirks. We will provide a general installation approach only.

This also applies to all Linux topics in the RP6 System Manual

Bootloader
There is a so called Bootloader program located in a special memory area of the microcontroller. This tiny program is responsible for loading new user programs into the microcontroller’s memory via the serial interface.
The Bootloader communicates with the the RP6Loader software on the host PC. Like this, no additional programming hardware is required. The USB Interface can be used for communication with the controller through text messages and additionally to program the controller. However there is one drawback in using a Bootloader: it needs 2KB of the flash memory, which will leave 30KB free memory for your own programs. This does not bother us too much as there is plenty of room even for very complex programs (compared to the 7KB free memory of the tiny ASURO robot)!

Java 6
The RP6Loader (see below for more information about it) has been designed for the Java environment and may be used in Windows and Linux (in theory, other operating systems such as OS X should work as well, but unfortunately AREXX Engineering does not support this so far). In order to run RP6Loader, you have to install a recent Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Maybe you already have it installed on your computer, but it should be at least Version 1.6 (= Java 6)! If you have not installed a recent JRE or JDK yet, please install SUN Microsystems' JRE 1.6 from the supplied CD or alternatively obtain a more recent version from the websites (http://www.java.com) or
(http://java.sun.com)

RP6Loader
We created the RP6Loader to simplify the uploading process for new programs to the RP6 and all expansion modules (as long as these modules provide a microcontroller with a compatible bootloader). Additionally we implemented a few useful functions, e.g. a simple serial terminal program.

You do not have to install the RP6Loader – instead you may simply copy the program somewhere to a new directory on your hard disk.

The RP6Loader is located in a ZIParchive on the RP6 CD-ROM

RP6 Library, RP6 CONTROL Library
and Example programs
RP6Library and the corresponding example programs are located in a ZIP-archive on the supplied CD:
Extract this archive to a directory of your choice on your harddisk.
We suggest to use a directory on a data partition. Alternatively you might use the “My Documents”-directory and create a subdirectory “RP6\Examples\” or use the Home directory in Linux.

The archive also provides examples for the RP6 CONTROL M32 expansion module including the corresponding library files!