ARIA

Adept MobileRobots Advanced Robotics Interface for Applications

Version 2.8.0

Linux

See LICENSE.txt for full license information about ARIA.

Please read this document for important details about using ARIA.

Introduction
Documentation
Licenses and Sharing
ARIA Package
Files of Note
Compiling programs that use ARIA
- Windows
- Linux
  - Using ARIA's Makefiles
  - Using your own Makefile or other build system
  - Setting variables for ARIA Makefiles
- Learning more about using Linux
- Learning more about C++
Using ARIA from Python and Java
Simulator

Introduction

Welcome to the Adept MobileRobots Advanced Robotics Interface for Applications (ARIA). ARIA is an object-oriented, application programming interface (API) for Adept MobileRobots (and ActivMedia) line of intelligent mobile robots, including Pioneer 2/3 DX and AT, PeopleBot, PowerBot, AmigoBot, PatrolBot/Guiabot, Seekur and SeekurJr mobile robots.

Written in the C++ language, ARIA is client-side software for easy, high-performance access to and management of the robot server, as well to the many accessory robot sensors and effectors, and useful utilities.

ARIA can be run multi- or single-threaded, using its own wrapper around Linux pthreads and WIN32 threads. Use ARIA in many different ways, from simple command-control of the robot server for direct-drive navigation, to development of higher-level intelligent actions (aka behaviors). Add your own features and modifications to ARIA: It's open-source!

The ARIA package includes both source code and pre-build libraries and example programs. These libraries and programs were build with GCC 3.4 if on Linux, and MS Visual Studio .NET 2003 (7.1), Visual C++ Express 2008 (9.0) or Visual C++ Express 2010 (10.0) if on Windows.
Using these compilers for development is recommended.

NOTE: If you use a different compiler or compiler version, you must rebuild the ARIA libraries to ensure link compatability.

See below for more information about building programs with ARIA on Windows and Linux and using the Windows and Linux development tools.

Documentation and Help

Follow the INSTALL text instructions to install ARIA on your Linux or Windows workstation or robot computer. System requirements are included in the INSTALL.txt file.

ARIA includes a full API Reference Manual in HTML format. This manual, Aria-Reference.html (and in the docs/ directory), includes documentation about each of the classes and methods in ARIA, as well as a comprehensive overview describing how to get stated understanding and using ARIA. In addition, ARIA includes several example programs in the examples/ (start with simpleConnect.cpp, then explore the others) and advanced/ directories, and the header files and source code are included in include/ and src/ as well.

The ArNetworking library has its own reference manual, ArNetworking-Reference.html in the ArNetworking subdirectory, and examples in ArNetworking/examples.

If you plan on using the Java or Python wrapper libraries, see the javaExamples, pythonExamples, ArNetworking/javaExamples and ArNetworking/pythonExamples directories for important information in README files, and example programs. You should also read the Aria Reference manual for general information about Aria -- the API in the wrapper libraries are almost identical to the C++ API.

If you have any problems or questions using ARIA or your robot, the MobileRobots support site provides:

A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list, at http://robots.mobilerobots.com/FAQ.html
A knowlege base of information on robot hardware and software, at http://robots.mobilerobots.com
All robot and device manuals
The Aria-Users mailing list, where you can discuss Aria with other users and MobileRobots software developers:
- Search the archives at http://robots.mobilerobots.com/archives/aria-users/threads.html
- Join the list at http://robots.mobilerobots.com/archives/aria-info.html
Information on contacting MobileRobots technical support.

License and Sharing

ARIA is released under the GNU Public License, which means that if you distribute any work which uses ARIA, you must distribute the entire source code to that work under the GPS as well. Read the included LICENSE text for details. We open-sourced ARIA under GPL with full source code not only for your convenience, but also so that you can share your enhancements to the software. If you wish your enhancements to make it into our future ARIA versions, you will need to assign the copyright on those changes to Adept. Contact lafary@mobilerobots.com with these changes or with questions about this.

Accordingly, please do share your work, and please sign up for the exclusive aria-users@mobilerobots.com newslist so that you can benefit from others' work, too.

ARIA may instead be relicensed for proprietary, closed source applications. Contact sales@mobilerobots.com for details.

For answers to frequently asked questions about what the GPL allows and requires, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

The ARIA Package

Aria/: docs The API Reference Manual: Extensive documentation of all of ARIA examples ARIA examples -- a good place to start; see examples/README.txt include ARIA header (.h) files src ARIA source code (.cpp) files lib Libraries (.lib files for Windows, .so files for Linux) bin Contains Windows binaries and DLLs. params Robot definition (parameter) files ("p3dx.p", for example) tests Test files, somewhat esoteric but useful during ARIA development utils Utility commands, not generally needed advanced Advanced demos, not for the faint of heart (or ARIA novice) python Python wrapper package java Java wrapper package

Aria/ArNetworking/: (A library used to facilitate network communication) docs API Reference Manual for ArNetworking examples ArNetworking examples include ArNetworking header (.h) files, of course src ArNetworking source (.cpp) files python Python wrapper package java Java wrapper package

Other ARIA Files of Note

LICENSE.txt GPL license; agree to this to use ARIA Aria-vc2003.sln MSVC++ 2003 solution for building ARIA and 'demo'. Aria-vc2008.sln MSVC++ 2008 solution file for building ARIA and demo. Aria-VC2010.sln MSVC++ 2010 solution file forbuilding Aria and demo. examples/All_examples-vc2003.sln MSVC++ 2003 solution for building all of the examples examples/All_examples-vc2008.sln MSVC++ 2008 solution for building all of the examples examples/All_examples-vc2010.sln MSVC++ 2010 solution for building all of the examples Makefile Linux makefile (GNU Make) for building ARIA and examples Makefile.dep Linux dependency file INSTALL.txt More information about installing ARIA README.txt This file; also see READMEs in advanced/, examples/, and tests/ Changes.txt Summary of changes in each version of ARIA

Building programs that use ARIA

Windows

On Windows, use Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 (MS Visual C++ 7.1), Visual C++ 2008 (VC9), or Visual C++ 2010 (VC10).

Note: If you use a different version of Visual C++, you must rebuild the ARIA libraries. We recommand and support only these versions; other versions may or may not work.

You can add your new project the Visual Studio solution files provided with ARIA if you wish, or create a new solution and add your new project as well as projects for the ARIA libraries you use.

Now you must configure your project to find ARIA. These instructions assume a default installation; if you installed ARIA elsewhere you must use different paths. If you keep your Visual Studo project within Aria's directory, you can also use relative paths (e.g. "..\lib" for the library path).

Aria libraries are provided in two variants, "Debug" libraries that use the "Multithreaded Debug DLL" runtime library, and non-Debug (or "Release") libraries that use the plain "Multithreaded DLL" runtime library. The ARIA solutions use a "Debug" and a "Release" configuration to select these variants; you can also use these configuration names as well if you wish.

Create new configuration in the solution: Release and Debug.
From the Project Menu, choose to edit your projects Properties. Or right-click on the project in the Solution Explorer and choose Properties.

To edit your new project's configuration properties, right click on the project in the solution explorer pane and choose Properties.

Change the "Configuration" (upper left of the dialog) menu to "All Configurations".
Click on the "General" section

Set "Output Files" to "C:\Program Files\MobileRobots\Aria\bin" (Aria's bin directory, where Aria.dll etc. are). Or, if you want your program saved in a different directory, you must put Aria's bin directory in your system PATH environment variable, or copy the DLLs to your own output directory.
You may want to change Intermediate Files. A useful value is "obj$(ConfigurationName)".
(Visual Studio 2003) Set "Use Managed Extensions" to "no".
(Visual C++ 2008) Set "Common Language Runtime Support" to "No Common Language Runtime Support"

Click on the "Link" or "Linker" section.

Click on the "Input" subsection.
- To "Additional Library Path" add "C:\Program Files\

Libaria

Install / Use

README