README.md

robotDevastation-playground

Robot Devastation playground repository.

Experiments that could be later added to robotDevastation. Some of them may be suitable for beginners that want to start developing on robotDevastation 😉

Originated from asrob-uc3m/robotDevastation#31, this README.md should work like an awesome list.

• Hardware
  • Components
    • Brains
    • Solar Panels
    • Worldwide Connectivity
  • Cool robots that could be supported
  • Cool input devices that could be supported
• Software
  • Android version
  • Battery Status
  • Augmented Reality (AR)
  • Bots
  • Computer vision without QRs
  • Cross-compilation
  • Game Engines
  • Monocular SLAM
  • Plugin Mechanisms
• Theory
  • Object Persistence
• Our Abandonware

Hardware

Components

Brains

• ESP8266
• Raspberry 3 B+: Includes cool wifi spec (2.4GHz and 5GHz IEEE 802.11.b/g/n/ac)!!!
• Orange Pi Lite (#12)

Solar Panels

• We have some!

Worldwide Connectivity

• Could be via SIM-card enabled robots (3g/5g...) or by creating a wireless mesh network similar to FireChat.

Cool robots that could be supported

• Loki (omnidirectional robot)
• miniKame (cute quadrupted robot)
• Mizu (quadruped robot)
• Ganker Robot - Omnidirectional robot with swords

Cool input devices that could be supported

• XBox controller

Software

Android version

• Android version of Robot Devastation (just an old idea)
• Some resources:
  • https://github.com/ZBar/ZBar/tree/master/android
  • https://wiki.libsdl.org/Android
• By having those two and YARP for Android to cover all RD dependencies, perhaps the game could be ported to Android with ``nothing more'' than a CMake cross-compile switch. See BUILD_ANDROID at https://github.com/robotology/yarp/compare/master...robotology-playground:yarp-android. In case the branch gets deleted: https://github.com/robotology-playground/yarp/commit/fd5eece5d7a378d19b6d78eec45dd97a9e033b00 + https://github.com/robotology-playground/yarp/commit/f47e9996d6e077f8114aa066233c87c047e0f5bb.
• More playground resources:
  • https://www.tensorflow.org/lite
  • https://developers.google.com/ar/discover/

Augmented Reality (AR)

Ways to get AR lasers and explosions into RD.

• https://github.com/robotology/superimpose-mesh-lib
• http://www.slashgear.com/reality-editor-ar-app-connects-iot-devices-by-drawing-lines-15418452/
• http://www.realityeditor.org
• http://www.openhybrid.org/adding-object-and-marker.html

Battery Status

• Use the YARP IBattery class if we ever get the hardware (#11 contains mostly broken links).

Bots

• We could create Non-Playing Characters (NPCs, or simply bots) with Artificial Intelligence (e.g. via Reinforcement Learning). An interesting concept is that of a Computer game bot Turing Test, which indicates that Bots with above-human performance can make a game boring.

Computer vision without QRs

• https://github.com/Neargye/hello_tf_c_api/blob/master/src/interface.cpp
• https://github.com/Dobiasd/frugally-deep

Cross-compilation

• https://github.com/dockcross/dockcross

Game Engines

• Unity
• Unreal
• Ogre
• Irrlicht
• Crystal Space
• Panda3D
• OpenSceneGraph
• PyGame

Monocular SLAM

• Semi-Direct Monocular Odometry (SVO) GitHub Video
• Parallel Tracking and Mapping (PTAM) GitHub Video
• A Versatile and Accurate Monocular SLAM (ORB-SLAM) GitHub
• Real-Time SLAM for Monocular, Stereo and RGB-D Cameras, with Loop Detection and Relocalization Capabilities (ORB-SLAM2) GitHub
• ORBSLAM2_with_pointcloud_map GitHub
• Large-Scale Direct Monocular SLAM (LSD-SLAM) GitHub

Plugin Mechanisms

While we mainly use the YARP plugin mechanism for Dynamic Linking plugins, here are some alternatives.

• https://github.com/robotology-playground/sharedlibpp
• Writing DLLs for Linux apps : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/l-dll/
• Stack Overflow (C++: Dynamically loading classes from dlls) : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/431533/c-dynamically-loading-classes-from-dlls
• HowTo: Export classes from a DLL : http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/28969/HowTo-Export-C-classes-from-a-DLL

Theory

Object Persistence

• (Burke, 2001) Creature smarts: The art and architecture of a virtual brain
• (Scholl, 2001) Object Persistence in Philosophy and Psychology
• (Isla, 2002) Object persistence for synthetic creatures
• (Gkikas, 2007) The evolution of FPS games controllers: how use progressively shaped their present design

Our Abandonware

• Trello boards deprecated in favor of our GitHub project.
• Slack channel #robotdevastation on ASROB workspace deprecated in favor of our Telegram channel. However, Slack integration with Travis CI could be intersting.