Setting Up Your Hardware
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Setting Up Your Hardware
Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) can be used with a wide variety of robotics hardware. In this section you can find information for setting up some robots for which sample services are supplied as part of RDS. (For the source code of the samples, look in samples\Platforms). However, the list is by no means exhaustive. Information about additional hardware platforms is provided by Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio Partners, the RDS developer community, and on the MSDN forums. See references at the bottom of this topic.
In general, follow the instructions for setting up the hardware and its means of communication to a PC running an operating system supported by RDS. The following information may be helpful in setting up the robots supported by the tutorials included in this release. In addition Robotics Tutorial 6 (C#) - Remotely Connected Robots provides an explanation of how to develop support for other remotely connected robotics hardware.
Many robots use a Bluetooth (wireless) connection to communicate between the PC and the robot. The process of connecting to the robot is called pairing. The actual steps involved depend on your Bluetooth software, so they are not covered here. Once your PC is paired with the robot, you use a virtual serial port connection. You need to know the outgoing COM port number assigned by the Bluetooth software in order to correctly configure RDS.
Note that all robots come with their own instruction manuals. You should read and understand how to operate your robot before trying to use RDS. Some of the robots must also be assembled before use. If your robot runs off batteries, make sure that you have installed fresh batteries or charged the batteries before you try to use RDS. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for testing your robot to ensure that the hardware is working before you try to write applications using RDS.
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Microsoft Robotics Studio Developer Center: External Partners | Community | MSDN Forums
Community and Third-Party Support: Open Source on CodePlex
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