LCR Manual Control Guide - directedmachines/customer-support GitHub Wiki

Table of Contents

Overview

The manual control user interface allows you to directly control your LCR using your device's touch screen or mouse. Use it to manually "drive" the LCR whenever appropriate. Various controls allow you to tune the sensitivity of motion commands, enable/disable advanced functions and the LCR's robot state.

Manual control is the best way to take down tall brush in an area for the first time, especially if the brush is taller than the LCR. Any new and highly-grown areas that you want to have automated later, usually need to be cleared with one manual pass first. This has the added benefit of giving you a heatmap in the cloud for you to base your AGT plan on later.

Prerequisites

  • First Use Guide
  • A device (phone, tablet, PC) connected to the LCR WiFi
  • The device locked in portrait mode (to prevent page refreshes when it is tilted)
  • A web browser open with the LCR dashboard page loaded

Loading the Navigation Page

Web browser

If you are using your own phone or a PC,

  • Connect to robot WiFi
  • Launch a Web Browser (Chrome or Safari)
  • type this URL in the address bar and press ENTER: http://edge.directedmachines.com:8000
  • Login, then touch /click the Gamepad icon on Bottom left of the screen

Provisioned Phone associated with LCR

Touch the Icon for Manual UI in the center of home screen. This will launch a web browser with the Manual UI.

Gamepad Icon

From any other UI page Tap / click the "gamepad" icon at the bottom of most UI pages to load the manual control screen, including the dashboard (see first use guide on how to launch your browser and display the robot dashboard)

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User Interface Overview

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In this image, we see the main Manual UI page. On this screen, we see the two side cameras on the left and right, and the main camera over most of the screen. We also see whether our drive is enabled or disabled, our direction, and the robots gps, magnetics, and charge state. We also see any alerts, which may appear in yellow for caution, or in red for urgent alerts such as the drive being disabled.

Finally, in the center of the screen there is a red and yellow circle, this is our joystick. If connecting from a computer and not present at the robot, it is not recommended to use the joystick and instead operate the LCR by having your page tabbed onto the image (you MUST click the main image, not just onto the tab), and using shift+direction keys to move the robot, shift+up to move the robot forwards, shift+left to turn the robot left, shift+right to turn the robot right, and shift+down to reverse. It is not recommended to use the input to reverse the robot unless absolutely necessary, in most cases if you are axle forward and need to immediately turn around, it is preferred to change the direction to caster, and then move forwards. This both provides the robot with more power, and is less confusing to control.

If you are connecting via a mobile device (tablet, phone, etc.), and are physically present at the robot, then the joystick provides more accurate turning, and a more responsive control scheme overall. When remote, you cannot tell where the robot is moving, and the freedom of this movement is very dangerous unless able to see the entirety of the robot, so do not attempt this remotely. If you are operating the robot with the joystick, simply hold up to move forwards, left/right to turn left/right, or down to reverse. The ability to move in ordinal directions as well as cardinal directions introduces the ability to move up-left, up-right, down-left, or down-right, which again is very dangerous to move in remotely, but can be very handy when physically present.

UI Settings

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Touch / click the Configure button to reveal the user motion control settings:

  • Axle AUX - This controls whether the motor on the mower is engaged or not. Axle AUX On engages the motor at the defined Axle AUX Power to the right of the control toggle, where Axle AUX Off disengages the mower motor.
  • Obstacles - Determines whether the robot will be able to move while obstacles are detected. It is important to have this disengaged in most circumstances, as the robot will regularly register false-positives where it can move without hitting anything but gets close, so will not allow movement if this is active.
  • Turn Sensitivity - Determines the sensitivity at which the LCR will turn. Generally for autonomy kept around 0.33.
  • Translation Sensitivity - Determines the sensitivity at which the LCR will move translationally. Generally for autonomy kept around 0.33.
  • Turn for obstacle - The slider changes how the LCR will react when it encounters obstacles, while user is moving the joystick: low values, LCR will not attempt to turn and go around, it will simply stop, slow down. Large values, the LCR will attempt to turn, blending obstacle avoidance with user suggestion
  • Gamepad Turn Sensitivity - The slider affects how quickly we turn, only when using a gamepad controller. Same applies to Gamepad translation slider, but for translational motion.
  • Zero turn - Controls turning in place when joystick is deflected directly to the left or right of screen. Disable if an attachment is being pulled or pushed that requires restricted radius turns

Joystick (Touch motion control)

The circle in the middle of the screen is the motion "joystick". On a phone, touch and hold, then slide up, down, left, right to control motion. Please gently slide and make sure there are no obstacles or people / animals close by when you first attempt motion control

If the finger is lifted from the screen, the LCR will stop

GamePad Control

A gamepad controller can be used to control robot motion, plus start / stop autonomous navigation.

Please use the user interface to confirm navigation is enabled and the area is free of obstacles before attempting motion control with the game pad.

Obstacle avoidance, if enabled, will affect the behavior of the robot while the controller is used, similar to the touch screen joystick.

Safety

The robot will move when you accidentally touch the right thumb stick and manual control is enabled.

  • Please be extra cautious and stay away from the robot when the gamepad is in your hands

Button Mapping

To wake-up the gamepad controller, press A, B, X, Y, you will notice a green LED come on briefly.

  • Right Thumbstick is used to control LCR direction (pushing up on joystick will move LCR forward)
  • START button (middle of pad, black) can initiate autonomy, if a plan is properly configured, destination / route is set
  • Any colored button will stop autonomy: X, Y, A, B
  • Pressing the A button will enable the AUX power output, using the preset power from the Manual UI
  • Pressing any other button, will stop the AUX power output

Remote Operation With a Keyboard

The Manual UI can be used to control a robot remotely, with a web browser and personal computer. Due to latency, remote operation poses extra risks and care should be taken before using the robot, in manual mode.

Safety

Please review and perform part of the checklist mentioned in the remote operation guide

Specifically, do the following steps before remote operation

  • Check Axle and Caster cameras, make sure they are updating and view is clear of obstacles
  • If warning about obstacles or faults are displayed in the UI, do not operate the robot
  • If internet connection is unreliable, do not operate the robot

It is strongly recommended obstacle avoidance is always enabled when translating or rotating. You can create and load a custom plan in AGT UI, "remote-manual", with a parameter domain and a simple work area, used just to set obstacle avoidance parameters

Keyboard control

With the web browser tab for Manual UI loaded and in focus, you can use the keyboard to send discrete translation and turn suggestions to the robot.

  • To enable keyboard control you must click on the camera image, anywhere but the joystick. Keyboard control will be disabled if the Manual UI tab/window looses focus
  • Set the "translation sensitivity" slider to 0.35 (35%)
  • Set the "turn sensitivity" slider to 0.3
  • experiment with these values in open space
  • press the SHIFT + arrow key to move the robot

Selecting camera image

The camera image displayed depends on the active direction (axle vs caster).

  • Using the mouse click anywhere in the current camera image
  • Color - Press the C key
  • Depth - Press the D key
  • Wide angle color, axle side only - Press the W key. Note this view is not available on all robots.
  • Reverse direction image - Press and hold the SHIFT while pressing once the C or D or W keys

Turning with Left / Right Arrow keys

You must hold down the SHIFT key, in addition to the arrow keys

Due to to limited field of view from active camera be extra cautious when turning.

Translation sensitivity should be at least at 40% for wheeled and 5% for tracked robots, less if close to structure

Turn sensitivity should be at least at 20% for wheeled and 25% for tracked robots (see next section)

  • left turn - press and hold SHIFT and press once the Left Arrow key on the keyboard. The robot will take its current heading and add 10 degrees in a counter clock wise direction. For example, if robot is oriented towards 180 deg (south), it will aim for 170 degrees (SSE)
  • right turn - press and hold SHIFT and press once the Right Arrow key on the keyboard.
  • only hold arrow buttons down for up to 2 seconds, never more.

Adjust turn/translation sensitivity

When controlling a robot remotely with the keyboard, you will likely need to adjust the turn sensitivity slider higher, possibly to 0.25, so robot can turn with the brief turn signals from the keyboard. In the image below, its set to 0.1, which is too low for keyboard control.

Remember to restore turn sensitivity to a low number, so direct human control has a safe experience.

Translating with Up / Down Arrow keys

Remember to set translation sensitivity to 50% or lower when first using a robot remotely, so direct human control has a safe experience.

To translate, for a short fixed interval

  • press and hold the SHIFT key
  • press the Up Arrow key for forward motion
  • press the Down Arrow key for reverse motion
  • let go of a key to stop translation within one second of pressing

Next Steps