Question is how can I get to work with Roomba using Java?
RoombaComm is a Java library for communicating and controlling the Roomba. It works on Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.
You can easily program the roomba in java! True, the roomba doesn't have much memory on its processor to really do... anything - haha, but you can use its SCI command interface to send it motion commands.
Thus if you use a separate device to program in java, and then use a simple serial cable to relay the motion commands you wish the roomba to do, then you should be good!
Any sort of microcontroller will work & what's nice about the serial port on the roomba is that you can source power (5v) from it as well to power your controller. One way I recomend is to get a rootooth to play around with. It's a bluetooth adapter for the roomba and will allow one to play around with the device while not being constrained with wires.
Either way, the serial interface is pretty basic. This website has a good introductory overview of how to control the roomba with the serial commands:
http://www.robotappstore.com/Knowledge-Base/1-Introduction-to-Roomba-Programming/15.html
You can either transfer data to a host computer, or even just stick your computer on the robot and have it do a bunch of things!
Hope this helps!
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First of all, I am extremely new to coding and I just learned the basics of java. I want to do an android app as my first project. The idea of the app would be to have buttons on your phone which would work as keyboard macros. I was wondering if I also needed to create specific windows drivers for it or if I could just make it run on the default windows keyboard drivers? As I said I am super new to all of this (about 10hrs of programming experience), so feel free to correct me and educate me as much as you want! I won't take it personally, I'm looking to learn :)
You would need to set up some sort of communication between the app and your PC. You wouldn't need to do anything with the keyboard drivers. Java has something called the "Robot class" which allows you to simulate a keypress.
Here is the documentation on the robot class: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/awt/Robot.html
As for the communications, you will need to create a server/client connection. One of your devices will act as the client (probably your phone) and one will act as the server (probably your PC).
This is just a rough idea of how it would work but:
When you tap the button on your phone, it would send some specified data to your server that is running on your PC. You should set the data that gets sent from the client to the server as the key(s) keycode that you would like it to simulate so it will be easier to implement. When the server gets data from the client, it should send that data to the robot.keypress(data) function.
This honestly sounds like it will be a big project for your skill level but I wish you the best of luck on this. This will probably be a frustrating experience but don't let it get the better of you.
I want to control a circulator (Thermo Haake DC30/DL30) which has got a RS232c interface. My first problem is that my computer has got only USB connections. Is it possible to use a RS323 to USB adapter and transmit commands and which libraries could you recommend me to use?
Also I don't know which language would be recommended. I am experienced in C# and Java. But I wanted to try out Python. I heard that it is less code to write and it would be a great opportunity to learn Python at the same time.
At the end I want a GUI in which I can set values like temperature, interval, read the current temperature or any fault messages.
I think what a USB to COM adapter does is create a virtual COM-Port on your PC, which you can then use like a regular one. Just make sure to get the right drivers, if you even need them.
I wrote a small app that required barcode scanners via RS232 in Python and I think I used PySerial, it is also definitely possible with C#, I tried that but gave up, since the application was no longer needed.
I am a web programmer and I am just wondering how software and hardware can communicate. I have basic knowledge in Java but I am not an expert.
Let's make it simple. I have a device which is just a simple lamp that can get switched on and off and it is connected via USB. My software has only one function - pressing enter.
By pressing enter I want the software to communicate with the USB port and tell it to activate the device. How would that be possible? Where do I have to start and what do I need to learn?
I understand that my question and my example sound silly but I am just trying to understand how it works.
I appreciate any help!
I think that if you using arduino or other prototyping board you might use rxtx serial library.
If I answer simply, then I should tell, you need to have microcontroller to do this by your own.
A microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. So, there are input, output pins for different operations you want to do with your physical hardware and also a memory to store the commands or program. That means a microcontroller is a third party which keeps communication active between the hardware and software in this case.
In the market, you can find many microcontroller integrated boards for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical world.
To make your work easy as a beginner, I suggest you to buy an arduino board from the market. If you google it and search for arduino tutorials in youtube, you will find how they work. Hope these help you.
I´m intending to build some java apps to be run on a raspberry pi, the main thing is that I intend them to be used with a touchscreen (not too expensive of course)
I´ve been reading about SPI communication an GPIO also, but I still have some doubts.
Can I use the SPI ports and the GPIO to both control and connect the touchscreen to the board?
in this case, Is "everything included" on raspbian? (Let me explain that) if you use the standard HDMI, my JVM will interact with raspbian to control the screen (as a standard computer screen) and the same with the touch events coming from the USB. But, as I´m not using these ports, Will I need any special libraries to be installed on raspbian? and of course, Are any?
The main problem is that I've found some libraries on c (for certain screens) but I will like to use java. If not, I will try to implement any kind of "system calls-like" interface with both java for the apps and c for the events and screen drawing.
Does all the things that I´m typing make sense?
Thanks a lot. I will appreciate any help.
yes your RaspberryPi can work with touch-screens, use JavaFX/OpenJFX. Note - you will need a compatible touch screen device (some of which are listed in the link below)
See: https://wiki.openjdk.java.net/display/OpenJFX/OpenJFX+on+the+Raspberry+Pi
There are numerous articles which explain how to handle touch events with JavaFX/OpenJFX so hopefully using the API wont be too much of a problem.
Hope that helps :)
I'm thinking about making a physical controller (device?) with knobs, buttons, and LEDs. I'd like to interact with it using Java (respond to the knobs, light up LEDs, etc). The reason I mention Java is two-fold: first, I know Java well1. Second, I've written the rest of the program I need to interface with in Java (though there are ways to talk to the Java program from another language).
I would like the device to connect via USB and be (computer-)platform independent.
I haven't the slightest idea of where to start, except to start reading the Arduino website. Is this my best/only option? Is there something better suited for communicating with Java?
Note: I know that Arduino has something to do with Java (not sure what), but it seems like code must be written in a subset of C.
How would I get moving on this topic?
1 - No laughter, please.
The Arduino development environment is written in Java.
But the standard language you write a program for the Arduino platform is effectively C++.
The Arduino platform is based on an Atmel AVR chip. There is at least one Java VM for AVR chips. There are other languages available for the AVR such as Forth and BASIC (although I could only find commercial versions, so I'll if you want to find them, search for "AVR BASIC").
The Arduino uses a virtual COM port to communicate between the host computer and it. A virtual COM port emulates an old style serial line but is done with USB. You can use the Java communication API to then have a Java program running on the host computer communicate with your physical device.
For some encoders and buttons, you probably want to implement a USB HID device. If you're going to produce more than a couple of them, you'll want to do a custom board. Check out V-USB, an open-source library for making USB HID devices using Atmel microcontrollers. They have a bunch of examples of projects that use this library.
You could probably make this look like a HID joystick, using the encoders to produce X/Y axis information and having the buttons act like buttons. They you could use standard Java gaming APIs to read the joystick values.
Can you expand on your need for a custom device? It seems to me that designing hardware has a pretty high barrier to entry and that most applications I can think of would be better resolved by repurposing an existing piece of game controller hardware. If you really need new hardware, then i suggest you start by googling 'USB development kit' or
'USB development board' which will get you links like this, this and this.
As for working with USB hardware from Java, I've played around with the JUSB library a bit and it looks promising, but appears to be limited to Linux only because the Windows version of the native library half of the library hasn't been written. Alternatives can by found by googling 'HID java'.
Ok, computer-platform independant? What platforms are you targetting? That would depend on the driver and support for that said platform, what does the usb device do? Is it a mass storage device...You may have to look around and see if you can find a device driver that can talk to the device...
Hope this helps,
Best regards,
Tom.
I know for the serial port there were libraries that existed for interacting with it (rs232 library). Googling for java and USB returned several answers (the first was called jUSB). That would be the first type of thing I would be looking for.
sample for java usb connection to freescale microcontroller:
http://javausbapi.blogspot.com/