Quick Start Guide

Image Installation

First, aquire and uncompress the current sd-card image from (tbd, BETA Image). This image is then to be flashed to a at least 4GB large micro sd-card using common raw image flashing methods (e.g. Etcher or dd).

⚠️ Warning:
Follow the instructions for your chosen flashing method closely. Flashing will delete all data on the sd-card and incorrect flashing might lead to data loss on your machine.

First Use

Insert your prepared sd-card into the Raspberry Pi Zero on the EvoTrainer, set the battery switch to on and then push the start button. The system now takes a moment to boot up (blinking activity led on the Raspberry Pi). At the end of the boot process two green leds should be iluminated on the base board next to the start button.

There should now be a wifi access point available with a name simmilar to evotrainer-abc3 (the last 4 characters are specific for your device). Connect to this access point using the password evocortex. After successfull connection you can access the system via ssh at 192.168.10.1 using the credencials evocortex:evocortex.

Alternativly, you can connect a micro-USB cable to the micro-USB port with the label usb next to it. This should provide a network interface on your computer, which then needs to be configured for address 192.168.100.1/24. The system is then reachable via ssh at 192.168.100.2 using the above mentioned credencials evocortex:evocortex.

📝 Note:
In the default configuration, internet access, for e.g. installing updates, is only available via the USB connection and a NAT forwarding on the host.

Starting the ROS Environment

For a simple trail run, simply start the included script ./run-evotrainer-controller.sh and publish Twist messages to /cmd_vel using rostopic pub.

📝 Note:
There is currently a bug in the base controller ROS node, which causes the first invocation after a power on to fail. Simply terminating with CTRL+C and then starting the launch file or script again should work.

For more evolved operation, refere to the included Evocortex ROS nodes in the evo_catkin_ws workspace. The appropriate launch file for the evotrainer is roslaunch evo_rd_platform_example evo_evotrainer_base_driver.launch.