Pyro, Glue, and Clay

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Pyro, Glue, and Clay

• Doug Blank
• Bryn Mawr College

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What is Pyro?

• Pyro is the software component of a recent NSF
  grant, Beyond LEGOs Hardware, Software, and
  Curriculum for the Next Generation Robot
  Laboratory
• Douglas Blank, Bryn Mawr College
• Deepak Kumar, Bryn Mawr College
• Lisa Meeden, Swarthmore College
• Holly Yanco, University of Massachusetts Lowell

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What is Pyro?

• Code for exploring robotics, written in Python
• GUI, libraries, abstractions, and collection of
  teaching materials
• Robot, Device, OS, and Paradigm independent
• Designed for students to jump-right-in, but to
  also pedagogically scale with the user's
  experience
• Pedagogical glue to aid exploration

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Python

• Looks like pseudo-code
• Indentation matters
• Object system built on top of functions
• Support for functional programming
• Large collection of libraries
• Interactive
• Can be easily integrated with other low-level
  languages (via SWIG)

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Pyro GUI
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Servers Robots and Simulators
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Pyro GUI
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Brain A Pyro Control Program

• from pyrobot.brain import Brain
• class Avoid(Brain)
• def step(self)
• self.robot.move(1, 0)
• def INIT(engine)
• return Avoid('My Avoid Brain', engine)

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Pyro Architecture
pyrobot.robot
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Pyro Architecture
Device
Device
Device
Gripper, Camera, PTZ, etc.
Server
Robot or Simulator
Low-level C
Pyro
Python code
Brain
User's Python code
Pyro Libraries
Python Libraries
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Pythons all the way down

• GUI (Tkinter)
• Graphs, plots, bar charts, other visualizations
• Libraries and modules
• Neural networks, self-organizing map,
  backpropagation of error, genetic algorithm,
  genetic programming, mapping, RL, etc.
• Vision interface
• Display, and filter application
• Complete Simulator
• Sonar, Gripper, Camera, Lights, Bulbs

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Pyro Abstractions

1. Default Range Sensor
2. Sensors Report in Robot Units
3. Named Sensor Groups
4. Generalized Motion Control
5. Abstract Devices

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Khepera and Pioneer can run the same control
progams
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Pyro as Pedagogical Glue

• Pyro was designed to explore AI and robotics
• Teaching drives the abstractions
• Develop, test, explain, repeat.
• Introduction of robots into the AI classroom can
  help teach AI
• Span the gap between agents and robots
• Introduce these exciting topics to a wider and
  more diverse audience

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Exploring Cognitive Science

• Braitenberg's Vehicles
• Exploration of simple creatures and interesting
  behaviors
• Law of uphill analysis and downhill invention

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A Simple Brain Braitenberg1

• from pyrobot.brain import Brain
• class Vehicle(Brain)
• def setup(self)
• self.robot.light0.units "SCALED"
• def step(self)
• leftSpeed max(s.value for s in
  self.robot.light0"left")
• rightSpeed max(s.value for s in
  self.robot.light0"right")
• speed (leftSpeed rightSpeed)/2.0
• print "speed", speed
• self.motors(speed, speed)

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Karel the Robot, Hunt the Wumpus
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Game Playing Konane, Hawaiian Checkers
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Robotics

• Mapping and Localization
• Behavior-based control
• Fuzzy logic
• Subsumption
• State machines
• Vision
• Multi-robot cooperation

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Developmental Robotics
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Pyro as Modeling Clay

• Modular design allows unique combinations
• GA NN evolving robots
• Fuzzylogic statemachine FSM
• Designed to be a framework for extension
• U Pitt Pyro Unreal Tournament USaR
• GA to evolve music
• Student projects and extension docs
• Pyro has served as a basis for additional NSF
  proposals

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Pyro Student Projects
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Pyro, The Future

• Planning a new version in .NET
• IronPython, but also language agnostic
• Rework everything (including vision) into a
  single easy-to-use system
• Sophisticated, yet extensible simulator
• Standardized protocols at all levels
• Advanced connections to latest and greatest
  robots and simulators

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PyroRobotics.org