rdis -- the robot device interface specification

a project by the Distributed Autonomy Lab at The University of Alabama

http://robotics.cs.ua.edu/
http://beastie.cs.ua.edu/~pkilgo/rdis/

Current maintainer: Paul Kilgo
Advising professor: Dr. Monica Anderson

# WHAT IS RDIS


RDIS is a domain model for mapping robotic framework messages to device
messages in a re-useable way so we don't have to write robot drivers over and
over. The general approach is:

1. Create an RDIS description for a robot.
2. Create an RDIS adapter for your framework.
3. Load RDIS description and GO!

The benefit is that as soon as any robot is RDIS-enabled, it may be used with
any RDIS-enabled framework.

This project is still in its infancy so we're still figuring out how to do
this correctly and sustainably.


# HOW DO I MAKE A DESCRIPTION FOR MY FAVORITE ROBOT


First make sure your robot fits the checklist:

1. The robot has a firmware interface.
2. The robot is a differential-drive robot.
2. I can talk with the firmware interface over the serial port (others to come)
3. The communication protocol is fixed-width packed bytes OR
   The communication protocol is ASCII-encoded, and memoryless.

Still here? Good!

RDIS descriptions are just text, but it's complicated so there is a tool to
help you do it. Since we are a model-driven project, we build models of the
robot and then we compile the model into an RDIS description.

The tool we use is called AToM3 (http://atom3.cs.mcgill.ca). First, you
download AToM3, get it set up, and make sure it runs. Then, you can install the
RDIS extension for AToM3.


# HOW DO INSTALL THE RDIS EXTENSION FOR ATOM3


In this directory, there is a subdirectory called "formalisms." Copy the
contents of that directory into AToM3's "User Formalisms" directory.

Then you can open up AToM3, press F3, load the "RDIS" formalism in your
"User Formalism" directory, and begin making models.


# HOW DO I BEGIN MAKING MODELS


I assumed you already loaded the "RDIS" formalism (see above section).

There are buttons at the top of AToM3. Left-click the next thing you want to
make on the canvas. Next, Ctrl+Right Click on the canvas to make that thing
appear.

Once things are on the canvas, you can:

* Hover over the thing and press "E" to edit its attributes (or double-click)
* Ctrl+Left Click to drag an arrow between two things.
* Press the "Edit" button to give your robot model a name.
* Press the "Compile" button to compile the description.

There is a specific language to how you design the things and arrows on the
canvas, and as you click the "Compile" button a lot you'll notice that it tends
to complain. To understand the language, you must first understand the model
we are following. For more information about the model, please see the RDIS
wiki pages on the Distributed Autonomy Lab's wiki, or I'll attempt to link
you right there:

http://ua-robotics.net/index.php?title=RDIS