First Steps

A Beginner's Guide

Connecting Power

The EyeBot M6 can be powered either from a power supply at a range between 7.2V -12V through the power terminal at the bottom right corner, or through its mini-USB slave connector from a PC.
Note that in case of powering through the USB slave connector, there is no shut down mechanism and no motors should be driven through the controller.

Power-up and Shut-down

Power-up: hold the power button (bottom right) for about 3 seconds. The system will then boot up and the power LED will be lit. If a console ist connected to SERIAL1 (see below), the Linux boot sequence can be viewed. RoBIOS will display the start-up screen on the LCD.

Power-down: hold the power buttom (bottom right) for about 3 seconds. The system will shut down and turn off the power LED - only if power is supplied from a power supply, not from USB slave (see above). If a console connected, power-down message are being displayed.

Note: A terminal console, e.g. Windows Hyperterminal or TeraTermPro can be used to view the boot procedure and to login as "root". Use an RS232 extension cable (male-female) to connect Serial1 on the EyeBot to e.g. COM1 on a PC. Use the serial settings 8N1, 115200 Baud, no-handshake on the PC. At the end of the boot-up process (see below), the EyeBot will display a Linux login prompt. Login name is "root" without a password (press "return" only).

Programming the CPU

Program Design

Write a C or C++ program that includes the EyeBot include file and RoBIOS commands for acessing LCD, touch screen, I/O, etc. See the RoBIOS library for a full list of library functions provided.
Example program "hello world":

#include <eyebot.h>
int main()
{ LCDInit();
  LCDPrintf("Hello World!\n");
  return 0;
}

Program Compilation

Application programs can be compiled either from the command console using the batch file gccarm (or make), or by using DevC++ with the supplied settings.

To compile a program from the command line:
1. Double-click the "start-M6.bat" batch file to get a console with all paths set.
2. Compile application program, e.g.:
  gccarm -o myprog myproc.c

To compile a program using the DevC++ programming environment:
1. Only for the first time, install the "devcpp-settings" from the "tools" subdirectory
2. Edit your program within DevC++ and compile it with the compile button or menu command

Program Download

Before the application program can be run, the program has to be copied to the M6 controller. With LAN connected, this can be easily done using the "putty" or "scp" utilities.
After copying the file, its protection has to be set to executable, e.g. from the M6 console:
  chmod a+x myprog

Program Run

The executable program can now be run either from the M6's touch screen or from a remote Linux console.

Running a program, from RoBIOS (touch screen):
Press "USR", Select program from list, press "run".

Running a program f rom a Linux remote console:
1. Start a remote console from the PC by running
"putty" or "rsh" with the name or IP number of your M6 controller, e.g.:
  rsh 129.45.12.77
2. Login to the remote shell with either root, password or a user account, e.g.: eyebot, eyebot
3
. In this new remote Linux command shell, go to the right directory and enter the name of the executable file. E.g.:
  myprog

Programming the FPGA

TBA.


Thomas Bräunl 2008