Roomba/Eclipse

Latest revision as of 19:09, 17 March 2009

Notes on how to set up to use Eclipse IDE to develop for iRobot Roomba. You can follow the steps below or just download, extract, and import this:

• Eclipse Project
• another Eclipse Project with some stub classes for subsumption architecture

Background

Below is a shortcut method to set up Eclipse IDE Instead of using the pseudo-Java development tools provided by Processing The basic idea is to:

• Get Processing to work with Roomba. (i.e. follow procedures from Processing
• Copy the roombacomm libraries into a new Eclipse workspace
• Configure the classpaths
• Configure run paths through Eclipse

Configuration

Connect Roomba to your Computer

Install Processing

• Install Processing.
  • This may require configuring the speed of the serial data communications link via an application like Zterm. for configuring Bluetooth
• If you are running on Mac OS 10.4, you will need to run the macosx_setup.command script as root in the Processing 0123 directory. NOTE: I could not get the macosx_setup.command script in the roombacomm-java_1.zip package to run.
• If you are running Mac OS 10.5, then you may also need to change some permissions on system folders.

Mac OS X 10.5 (from processing) error message:

check_group_uucp(): error testing lock file creation Error details:Permission denied
check_lock_status: No permission to create lock file.

Steps on how to fix this.

Create Eclipse Project

1. Create a new Eclipse project using the "New Project Wizard"
2. Copy /Applications/Processing 0123/libraries/roombacomm/library/* into the newly created Eclipse Project
3. Add RXTXcomm.jar to buildpath
4. Add roombacomm classes to buildpath
   • roombacomm.jar to buildpath. OR
   • rename "roombacomm.jar Folder" to "classes" and add as a src folder

Configure Execution within Eclipse

Any main class that will run Roomba code must add a VM argument to use the RXTX JNI libraries correctly.

The process of running is easy as 1,2,3,...,4, and 5!

1. Eclipse Menu->Run->Open Run Dialog...
2. create 'New' launch configuration
   

   

   create 'New' launch configuration
   
   
3. Select a Java class that contains your main() method
   

   

   choose a main() method
   
   
4. Add command line arguments and add the RxTx lib to your -Djava.library.path
   

   

   add rxtx libraries to your Java library path
   
   
5. Save and Run!

Notes

Tested with a Macbook C2D, Bluetooth, Mac OS 10.4, Sun Java 1.5. If you have gotten your computer to connect to a Roomba and used the Processing dev environment, then there is no reason why you would not be able to get Eclipse IDE to work too.

References

• Eclipse.org
• Todd E Kurt. connecting via bluetooth. roombacomm/processing
• Processing
• Rxtx
• JNI