Tag Archives: er1

Adding Face Detection with Processing

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Adding face detection so that the ER1 robot can respond when it sees someone’s face was a tall order. Part of my reasoning for choosing Processing as an interface for controlling the ER1 was because of the many image processing libraries and functions it provides. One of the most powerful is Open CV, the open source computer vision library originally created by Intel and now maintained by Willow Garage. By installing Open CV to work with Processing and by getting the webcam that came with the ER1 to be functional I was able to provide the robot with the rudimentary ability to detect and react to a person’s face in it’s field of view.

First the webcam needed to have its drivers installed. The drivers for the ER1 webcam appear to only have versions for Windows XP, 2000, ME, and 98 (I told you this thing was old). The webcam itself is a IREZ Kritter which now appears to be managed by GlobalMed a telemedicine company. When you connect the camera’s USB to the computer and windows asks for the location of the drivers, navigate to C:\Program Files\ER1 CD\CameraXP\

Once the camera’s drivers are installed upon opening the ER1 and choosing Setting -> Camera and clicking the checkbox that says “Enable Camera Usage” the camera’s video should be visible in the ER1 interface. When connecting the camera to processing make sure the ER1 check-box is NOT selected or Processing will give an error that the hardware is already in use.

Now Open CV needs to be installed. Follow the directions given on the Processing libraries webpage. The version of processing to be installed is Intel(R) Open Source Computer Vision Library 1.0. I had to install, uninstall and reinstall Open CV a couple times before I got it to work, hopefully it’s not so hard for you (if you ever have a reason to attempt this).

Lastly, in order to view any video with Processing, whether from a webcam or not, currently a very old plug-in called WinVIG 1.0.1 is required. Once all this stuff is installed and you’ve moved the unzipped example Open CV sketches folder provided with the library into your Processing->libraries folder you should be all set. You can hope to get something like this running in no time.

Face Detection Example

Example Face Detection Example from Processing using ER1 Webcam

Reviewing Last Semester

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So here’s the deal. Last year I took a class named “Machine Learning”, in which we learned some of the basic uses and algorithms that comprise machine learning. One of the projects we attempted was to use a couple of very outdated Evolution Robotics ER1 robots to implement a machine learning task. The problem was the robot hardware and software were both so out of use and in bad repair that they were very difficult to use for the task at all. After the class concluded I came back to see what could be done to make the robots somewhat functional. What I decided to do was use Processing and it’s free extension libraries to connect with and control the ER1 through the provided telnet API and the ER1 Robot Control Center (RCC). I successfully started that project last year, and attempt now to describe what was done and how it works.

First: The RCC and Processing must be installed on the laptop that is gong to control the robot. RCC should come on a CD or download with the ER1 and Processing is freely available from their website.

Second: The RCC must be configured to all API control. This is done by clicking the “Settings” button in the upper left corner, followed by opening the “Remote Control” tab. Then the radio button “Allow API control of this instance” must be selected. The Port defaults to 9000, and leaving is as such worked just fine. Then clicking “OK” should make the RCC ready for API control. If you did this step correctly, upon opening the RCC the message box should say something like “Listening for incoming API requests on port 9000”. In order to control the ER1 through Processing the RCC must be left open, but it can be minimized.

Third: Open Processing and run a sketch that uses the network library to connect to the RCC telnet API. Here is one such example program that I use to verify that the ER1 is connected and functional

import processing.net.*;

Client myClient;

void setup() {
  myClient = new Client(this, "localhost", 9000);
  myClient.write("play phrase \"Hello World!\"\n");
}

void draw() {
  delay(3000)
  myClient.write("play phrase \"I am an E R 1 Robot, who is Here to Help!\"\n");
}

At this point just about anything that can be done in Processing can now be translated over to the ER1 itself. Other telnet API commands can be used aside from “play phrase”. The API is documented in the RCC and this documentation can be found by opening the RCC, clicking on the “Help” button in the upper left corner, then by opening the section titled “ER1 Command Line Interface”.

If instead of using processing you wish to directly enter the command line control commands, open a windows command line, then type “telnet localhost 9000” without the quotation marks and press enter. If a blank black command line opens then you can control the robot from the command line. Have fun!