MRC/Tutorials

During the Mobile Robot Control (MRC) course you will encounter many tools, systems and concepts that you are currently unfamiliar with. This may be daunting at first, but soon you will notice the strengths of each of the tools and find out how they work together to allow you to program a real, physical robot. The following tutorials are aimed at getting you up speed with these tools as fast as possible.

Let's start with an overview of the tools we will be using and the roles they play within your project:

• Ubuntu: the Operating System we will be using. Ubuntu is a popular Linux distribution.
• C++: is the programming language we will be using. This means that your program, or code, will be written in C++.
• git: is a software versioning and revision control system. You will use it to share your project code between different group members, while maintaining a file version history. Think of it as Dropbox.
• VSCode: an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C++. All you need to create a C++ program is a simple text editor and a C++ compiler. However, it can become difficult to manage large projects, trace back where compile errors are coming from, etc. Think of VSCode as a very advanced text editor that understands C++ and makes programming C++ a lot nicer.

Tutorials

1. Installation options:
   • Native Ubuntu
     1. Prerequisites
     2. Installation of EMC environment
   • Virtual Machine (e.g. Windows, MacOS)
     1. Introduction to Virtual Machines
     2. Virtual Machine Ubuntu Installation
     3. The terminal
     4. Installation of EMC environment
2. Using the simulator
   1. Starting the simulator
   2. Controlling the robot
3. Your project
   1. Setting up and building your project
   2. The EMC framework
   3. Cmake
4. The EMC environment
5. Simple C++ programs
6. Git
7. Setting up VScode

Documentation

The goal of the documentation is to guide as a reference to use the simulator and EMC environment. Use them when you need them.

1. Using the simulator
   1. Using a custom simulator map
   2. Adding clutter and simulating wheelslip
   3. Adding doors
2. Frame transformations
3. Working with the real robot
   1. Working with real robot
   2. Using maps on the real robot