Project NAO Control

This project goal is to simulate a NAO in v-rep. The main idea is to be able to test a script in a virtual environment before implementing it on a real NAO. In addition to v-rep we will use the Choregraphe suite and the Python NAOqi SDK from Aldebaran.

Requirements

• v-rep : A mostly free and awsome robot simulator.
• Python NAOqi-SDK : Contain all the function you need to manipulate your NAO (virtual or not) using python.
• Choregraphe Suite : This will allow you to manipulate your virtual robot easier and launch a virtual NAO on your computer.
• Spyder : This is not mandatory, but it's a good MATLAB-like development environment for python

N.B : To download the Aldebaran related softwares you must pocess a NAO or join their developper program

Quickstart guide

• Launch v-rep and load the scene contained in the Vrep-scene folder
• Go to your choregraphe suite folder, then in the bin folder and launch naoqi-bin to create a virtual NAO on your computer
  • You can launch several virtual NAO on different ports using :

$ ./naoqi-bin -p [Port Number] &

• Add pynaoqi to your python path or if your using Spyder goto to ->Tools->PYTHONPATH manager and add a path to the folder containing pynaoqi
• Optional : You can launch choregraphe to visualize your virtual NAO or check its IP and Port using the connect button
• Launch the v-rep simulation . (or the scripts won't work)
• Launch the multi_nao_control.py script if you have several NAO or the single_nao_control.py if you have just one NAO to control
• Give all the informations needed (IPs and Ports) and wait until NAO is listening
• You can try to make your NAO move in v-rep using choregraphe or a script you've made
• Enjoy !

How to retrieve the video from NAO's vision sensors in v-rep :

You can retrieve images from the cameras of your virtual NAO in v-rep just by using our script vision_sensor.py. This script will stream the camera in a independent display. You can also import the function in another script. The function getVisionSensor will just retrieve the image and not display it.

How to configre your own v-rep scene :

If you want to create your very own v-rep scene containing a NAO, you'll need to configure it so the remote API could connect to it. To do so please follow the official v-rep documentation :

• Enable remote API client side
• Enable remote API server side
• Or if you prefer you can follow this -> video <- (many thanks to Nikolai K. for his really good tutorial)
  In order to get the camera and the fingers working you'll also need a few more steps :
• For the cameras
  • In the properties of the cameras untick "Explicit Handling"
• For the fingers
  • In each joint properties tick "Motion Handling of all joints enabled"
  • In each model properties of each joints groupement check that everything is untick

Finally, disable the child scripts automatically generated with the NAO.