This article will complete the explanation of robotic software; Webots. As you must be familiar with this word Webots through my previous article. As for now let me give you some introduction about it so that you don't feel numb while reading this article. Webots is a kind of an environment for simulation of mobile robots.
It is the only environment up until now that truly is a portable Robot simulator. Use of Webots allow us design to multiple Robots which shares a common environment. With Webots, simulation can be as real as possible.
Webots provide a facility for using as many robots as supported by memory and power and its not necessary that these robots be written in the same programming language. It is widely used worldwide.
More than fifteen universities are teaching their institutes in India alone. We will discuss the Webots devices which are used while designing some of this software.
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We have gone through features of Webots and its installation procedure. Now here we will study about the Webots devices and some more.
Battery: There is a Robot that moves in a closed boundary and with its movement the associated battery becomes discharged. This battery needs to charge itself with the help of some designed cylinders present inside the boundary.
These re-fillers are categorized for their power according to some colors and their power according to color is defined. The robot moving in this arena gets recharged time and again.
Camera: A camera is used to detect colored objects; it stops for a moment after detecting any object. The robot analyzes the color level of these pictures which are taken by cameras.
Not only this console also prints the information about detecting objects.
Connector: A connector is used to connect one robot to another robot. Understand in this way, a light object mounted on a heavy one or in other words heavy object has taken-over the light object. The light object or robot is passed over between both of the heavier robots. Connectors helps in connecting these different kinds of Robots.
Touch sensor, Distance sensor, Light Sensor: When the robot moves inside this boundary, it may collide with several obstacles. As shown in the image below, a car which is actually moving inside the boundary with the help of wheels is going to collide with a gate which is actually an obstacle for it. Touch sensors help in preventing these collisions.
Distance sensors are also used to prevent collisions as Braitenberg vehicle. Braitenberg vehicles are kinds of very small-small robots, in these small vehicles wheels are connected.
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Emitter-Receiver: This emitter-receiver pair is actually the two robots which share their signals to establish communication between each other. The emitter sends signals which are received by the receiver end and communication establishes.
These two emitters-receivers are placed in the same environment. If there is any obstacle between both of them, these two would be able to establish the communication between them.
Force Sensor: These are also a kind of sensors which measure force after each collision. The value of the force of the collisions are displayed on the Console.
LED and GPS: LEDs of different colors are mounted on the moving robot, these LEDs are of different colors and used according to the needs whereas GPS is used to find the current location of any robot.
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Image showing how different parts work under webots environment tkn frm:beacon-center.org
How to control a Robot in Webots?
We can do this using a controller. During simulation, the webots allows any controller which is specific to the certain process. This we have already discussed before that the source and the binary file both are stores by the controllers.
Resources
Webots-a software for Mobile Robots