CS225A : Puma 560 Manipulator

These steps are for running a controller on the Puma 560 platform.

Before turning on the robot

1. Verify that the controller in the simulated environment.
2. Turn on the Puma PC. Check that the internet ethernet is plugged in. You do not need to login.
3. Login in to the demo windows desktop computer (with the big screen). Use the CS225A Fall 2014-15 account.
4. Open SecureFx. Connect using the stored session perse and enter your group's login. This will open up a file transfer panel. Note: if you have problems connecting, ask one of the TAs to check/set network addresses.
5. In SecureFx on right pane (which contains the remote puma computer's file tree), maneuver to /home/<your_group>/puma. Replace the existing control.cpp with your version.
6. Run SecureCRT and connect to perse.
7. In SecureCRT terminal window, rebuild the project
   $ cd puma
   $ make rt
   $ ./run
   It may complain about the std library using min and max. If so, then write your own min max functions.
   double max(double a, double b) {return (a > b) ? a:b; }
double min(double a, double b) {return (a < b) ? a:b; }
   

Turning on the robot

1. Turn on Puma amplifier box using the AC Power toggle.
2. Engage the Puma arm E-Stop, the big red button attached to the arm, not the mobile base.

Running the robot

1. From your SecureCRT terminal, run "./run" in the directory "/home/<your_group>/puma"
2. On the windows machine, run the client "Desktop/cs225a/cs225a.exe". If you have problems connecting, check that the file "Configuration.dat" in the same directory contains the right network address.
3. Check that the actual Puma robot configuration matches the zero configuration shown in the GUI (the zero configuration). If not, then rezero the robot. Hold onto the so it does not fall under gravity. Release the break on the Puma by pushing the little black button at the base. Move the Puma into the zero configuration (note that the simulated Puma will move, but ignore this). The elbow should be at a right angle, the end effector's flat area should be parallel to the floor, and the wrist joint should be collinear to the elbow joint. There are small pencil marks indicating the zero positions.
   Once this is done, run the command "reset" in the SecureCRT terminal.
4. Unlock the E-stop. Make sure someone has their hand on this button from now until you turn off the robot.
5. In the simulator GUI, float the robot. Check that the actual robot is floating correctly.
6. Run your controllers on the robot using the GUI.

Turning off the robot

1. Move the robot back to the zero configuration. Turn off the AC Power to the Puma amplifier box.
2. Engage the E-stop.
3. Close the GUI. Make sure that this also stops the program running on the remote computer (it may fail with a memory error).
4. Engage the E-stop.