James Cole
Graduate Thesis Abstract

The Cooper Union for the Advancment of Science and Art

This thesis describes the design and implementation of a web-enabled communication platform for a single ActivMedia PeopleBot to be used in Cooper Union’s Robotic Theatre. This interface integrated the Saphira programming environment, the BotSpeak Via Voice interface, the PTZ Camera drivers, the ACTS Color Tracking software, and windows multimedia functionality through a TCP/IP communication channel.

This work was implemented in the "Camouflage Town" exhibit in the Data Dynamics gallery at the Whitney Museum. This exhibit ran from March 22nd to June 10th, 2001. This communication interface can be modified to use this robot in a different environment or a different programming language.

The setup of a robot software development environment will be discussed. This will cover issues such as installation, configuration and optimization of the PeopleBot, workstation setup, and network setup.

The communication interface used to control the PeopleBot will be discussed in detail. The main parts discussed will be: the TCP/IP Command Interface, the TCP/IP State, Error, and Query reporting interface, the Constellation Vision Navigation System for navigation through crowded environments and the flexible event synchronization system.

The software written to communicate with and add to this interface will be discussed. These include: the Visual C++ test client, the Java web server, the real video server and the flash interface.