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Pioneer Vision System Hardware Installation

Hopefully, your Pioneer robot arrived with a vision system already installed and hooked up. If this is the case, you should not need these instructions and should just follow the Quick Start instructions (see section Setting Up the Pioneer Vision Hardware). However, if you are installing the vision system into a Pioneer yourself, or if your system has been taken apart, these instructions should help you get it together and working.

Identify the boards
Your vision system consists of two boards (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram). Notice now which board is the vision board, and which is the processor board. The vision board has two video connectors and many LED's at each end. The processor board has four large rectangular chips (the memory), and one large square chip (the processor). Stack the boards together with the vision board on top, and the processor board on the bottom. Verify the orientation is correct by seeing that the mounting holes on the four corners of each board line up. Press the boards together firmly.
Connect power to the vision system

Next, you'll want to connect power to your board. The power connector is the male 6-pin molex connector at the same end of the board as the video connectors (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram). There should be a compatible female 6-pin molex connector coming from the Pioneer robot's power circuitry. Connect these two connectors together to provide power to the vision system.

While the robot is still open, turn on the main robot power. If you look from the right side of the robot so that the LCD display is at the top, this is the slide switch below and to the right of the charging plug. LED's on the top of the robot should light. Now turn on the vision system power. Again looking from the side with the LCD at the top, this is the switch above and to the left of the charging plug. Be sure that all the red LED's on the vision system light. If none of the vision system LED's turn on, check that both power switches are on.

WARNING: The power wiring is different for stand alone vision boards and for boards bundled with the Pioneer. The power wiring should have already been modified for use with the Pioneer. However, if the the red +5V Digital Power LED does not light, but the other two red LED's do, you may be using an unmodified vision system.

See section Status Lights and Beeper, for more general troubleshooting information.

Connect the serial wiring

The serial connectors for the vision system are 3-pin molex connectors at one end of the vision CPU board (the bottom board). WARNING: The vision board also has a 3-pin molex connector that is used for power in the stand alone mode. DO NOT CONNECT SERIAL TO THAT CONNECTOR! See section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram.

Find the 6 conductor ribbon cable with two 3-pin molex connectors at one end. Half of the conductors in this cable go to the 9-pin serial connector on the vision interface panel (see section Pioneer Vision Interface Panel Diagram). This is the host serial connector. The other half of the ribbon cable's conductors go into the 6811 board in the top of the Pioneer robot. This is the robot serial connector.

Connect the host serial connector (as described above) to serial port A on the vision system (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram). The other end of this cable will be connected to a host computer running ARC or Saphira. This will be accomplished in one of two ways:


Connect the 3-pin molex end to port B (the one on the left) on the vision system (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram). This allows the vision system to communicate with the robot controller. This is used either to pass information through between the robot and Saphira, or to allow the vision system to control the robot directly.

Connect the video wiring

Video input to the vision system comes from the camera, into the Camera in RCA connector on the vision interface panel (see section Pioneer Vision Interface Panel Diagram), through a cable, and into the Video In connector on the vision system (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram). To set this up, find the cable which goes from the inside of the vision interface panel Camera In connector. Trace it to the RCA plug at its other end. Now plug this into the vision system Video In connector (the white one on the left).

Video output comes from the vision system (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram), through a cable, and into the Video Out connector on the vision interface panel (see section Pioneer Vision Interface Panel Diagram). To set this up, find the cable which goes from the inside of the vision interface panel Video Out connector. Trace it to the RCA plug at its other end. With any luck, the cable leads to the only free RCA plug. Connect this into the vision system Video Out connector (the red one on the right). This will allow you to connect a video monitor to the Video Out RCA jack on the vision interface panel.

Connect the reset button

The reset button is the red button on the vision interface panel labeled Boot Button (see section Pioneer Vision Interface Panel Diagram). The reset button will be attached to a cable ending in a 2-pin molex connector. Connect this to the corresponding 2-pin connector on the vision board. This is at the opposite end of the board from the video and power connectors (see section Cognachrome Vision System Board Diagram; it is labeled Reset Lever on the diagram, but for the Pioneer configuration, this is a two pin connector).

Make sure it works
Work through the Pioneer Quick Start instructions (see section Pioneer Quick Start Guide) to make sure it works. So long as the power and serial connections are correct, it should work to interact with the robot using the Saphira host program. In order for the vision tracking to work, the video input connections must be correct. These two systems are largely independent, so it should be easy to track down problems in each set of connections separately.

If after you have double checked the connections it still does not work, you may wish to contact ActivMedia or Newton Labs (see section Reaching Newton Research Labs.

Screw the robot together
Congratulations! All the internal wiring is done at this point, so you can put the robot back together. You should now be able to interface to the vision system using the vision interface panel without needing to open the robot again

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