VRbot - Voice Recognition Module for RN-1 now in stock

[Gort]

It looks like the gui does not work with Windows 7. I was able to connect and use the gui with Vista.

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[PedroR]

Hi Gort

Could you please detail your experience?

When you mean "I am back to not connecting" what do you mean? You were able to connect but now you are unable to connect again?

We have seen some occasions where two different things may happen:
- The GUI software is unable to open the windows COM port for some reason. There is no problem with the board; it would be a software error and it is sometimes related to the OS version.

- The board does not respond to a connect.

So far it has been hard for us to separate between the two when customers ask for tech support.
We have advised the manufacturer about this and they are tracking the issue. They are also very interested to hear from customers about their experience so if you could detail yours, it would be great.
One question I can think of right now is this: are you running 32 bit or 64bit version of win7? when you say it works in vista, is it 32 or 64bit vista?

So far we've always been able to speak with customers and come to a solution either by working out the issue or replacing the board in the few occasions we've encountered this.

If you need any further assistance you can email me at pedro at robosavvy dot com .

Regards
Pedro.

[Gort]

I think that the one time I was able to connect with my Win 7 laptop was a fluke.

The error that I got was when I clicked on the connection button ( in the upper left hand corner of the screen ), it process the request for about 10 to 30 seconds and then the error message in the above post appears. The GUI seems like it sees the correct com port because the correct port number is the only one on the drop down menu or the first one on the list.

I have the 64 bit version of Win 7 and the 32 bit version of Vista. I am wondering if this could be the main issue?

I also have a serial to USB adaptor.

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[PedroR]

Hi Gort

Thank you very much for the information. That is very helpful.

I advised the manufacturer about your post and they sent the following recommendations:

1) Are you using the latest version of the GUI? The latest version is 1.1.2 and can be found here http://tigal.com/files/download/veear/V ... -1.1.2.zip
I will be updating the link in the product page as well.

2) From looking the video they took the opportunity to explain in a bit more detail some tips and tricks to improve speech recognition performance:
a)
speak naturally as speaking too loud may reduce the recognition performance. If the room is not noisy,they recommend that users speak as with another person, without "shouting".

b)
allow the system to switch from one wordset to another by making a pause before saying the next command: for instance "Robot" pause "Run" pause "Forward"... as again it should enable maximum recognition performance on the module.


It would be excellent if you could let us know the results of using the latest version with your Win 7 64bit.

Thank you very much for all the detailed info (and the video!).

Regards
Pedro.

[PedroR]

Hi Guys

I wanted to post a general troubleshooting guide for VRbot.

STEP 1:
If you can't access the board via the GUI, please ensure all connections are correct and in particular:
- RX of VRbot connects to TX on the host device
- TX on VRbot connects to RX on the host device
(here Host device is the Arduino/Robonova/Atmega, etc).

Additionally make sure you are applying 5V to the board and that you have Vcc and GND correctly connected.

STEP 2:
Once you do you that, and if the VRbot GUI does not connect, you can quickly troubleshoot if the board is working by connecting to it via Hyperterminal or a similar program. The procedure is described bellow.
This procedure is specially useful for people using Arduino and other platforms as the sample code sometimes does not work out of the box (because the current sample code it was not written for Arduino USB boards).

- Download the freeware TeraTerm here http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/ttssh2/releases/
You can use any other Terminal software; for the purpose of this tuturial we'll be using Teraterm.

- If you have a USB to TTL UART serial adapter (one that works at 5V), connect VRbot to the USB to TTL UART serial board (connect all pins of VRbot to the USB to TTL board, including Vcc and Gnd; remember RX goes to TX and TX goes to RX).
- If you don't have a board such as the above, (1) connect VRbot to your platform (Robonova, Arduino, etc) and (2) download the bridge program to the platform. Once you download the bridge program, (3) start the program.

- On the PC open TeraTerm and connect to the COMM port where the USB2TTL is connected (or the COMM port of your platform with where the bridge program is running if you chose this solution).
Connection details: 9600bps, No parity, 1 Stop bit, no flow control.

- Now test the communication:
Press lowercase x on your keyboard and then press SPACE.
You should receive a reply.
Repeat the procedure several times.
If VRbot replies, it means it is working properly.
Remember to always press SPACE after pressing x or otherwise, VRbot won't send the response.
It is normal that you don't see the characters you type. If you want to see the characters you type, enable an option called "Local Echo".

If you determine the module is working, then it is most likely a software issue.
In any case you can post here or contact us and we'll guide through fixing the issue.

Regards
Pedro.

[Gort]

I have tried out version 1.1.2 and it works with my 64 bit Win 7 laptop. I will post more as I get time to play with it more.

[PedroR]

Hi Gort

Thank you for your information. We'd be very grateful if we could hear about your experience.
There were some issues with using USB2Serial adapters with VRbot GUI but I believe those were mitigated now.
This new version has been tested on XP, Vista (32 and 64bit) and Win 7 32 bit. You would be Win7 64bit and therefore your input would be greatly appreciated.

I have also heard rumours of RoboBASIC not working on Windows 7. What is your experience on this?


Finally, for all those with Arduino USB boards, I am pleased to say the full Sample code for these boards (based on ATMEGA 168 and ATMEGA328) is nearly ready.


From the time I've taken with VRbot I came to realise you don't even need ot use the GUI to program the SD commands.
All operations are self contained (including the traning of voices) on the module so as long as you implement the protocol you can manipulate the module (including do training) from any host that can work at 9 600 baud or at least implement bit banging. The way the module is designed lets you use it with Bit Banging, even without a buffer and without any packet loss.
Quite clever.

Regards
Pedro.

[PedroR]

Hi Gort

I finally understood the combination of factors that can make VRBot GUI + Windows 7 fail

It needs a combination of factors to occur:
- You are using VRBot + Robonova (it doesn't affect other platforms)
- AND You are using Windows 7
- AND The bridge program is not already installed on the Robot
- AND You are using a USB to RS232 converters from ATEN (it is based on prolific; other brands don't seem to have any issue).

The GUI will work on Windows 7 as long as the bridge program is already installed on the Robot.
If the bridge program is not installed yet, the GUI may have some trouble downloading the bridge program to the Robot, when using Windows 7 (on other Windows Versions, the GUI WILL download the bridge program correctly).

This seems to happen with USB to Serial adapters from ATEN AND Windows 7 but it only affects the download of the bridge program.
It does not affect the programming of the module once the Robonova bridge program is already in place.
If you use any other platform or a USB to TTL serial adapter the GUI will also run fine on Win7. This issue is, at this point, specific to Robonova.

The reason why I asked about Robobasic and Windows 7 is because usually when the VRbot GUI can't download the program to the Robot, RoboBASIC itself will also not be able to do it on Win7.


Therefore it would be very helpful if you could give the following information:
1) Can you run RoboBASIC on Windows 7 and download programs to your robot from Robobasic on Win7?

2) If the bridge program is not installed on the robot already, is the vrbot GUI capable of downloading it itself on Win7?

3) Once the Robonova bridge program is installed on the Robot can the GUI operate correctly on Win 7?

4) If you are using a USB to RS232 converter, what is your brand/model?


Thank you very much.
Pedro

[PedroR]

Hi guys

Just a quick stop to let you now the Full Source code for Arduino USB boards is now available here http://robosavvy.com/RoboSavvyPages/VRb ... MO_1.0.zip

To run the sample code for Arduino USB Boards you need to be running VRBot GUI v 1.1.3 or above.
V1.1.3 can be found here http://robosavvy.com/RoboSavvyPages/VRb ... -1.1.3.zip .
I recommend that you visit the VRbot product page for up to date files/versions.

The previous source code for Arduino had been developed for the POPBot and is still available.

Therefore in addition to supporting Robonova, VRBot now supports, out of the box, the following platforms:

- POPBot Robots
- Arduino USB boards

The revised product page (including new and updated documentation is available here http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/571)

In addition, any other platform with a TTL UART or capable of doing BitBanging can use VRbot. You just need to follow the VRBot protocol.

Pedro.

[Gort]

1. Can you run RoboBASIC on Windows 7 and download programs to your robot from Robobasic on Win7?


Yes, I have a post on how easy it was to do called Robobasic and Windows 7.

2. If the bridge program is not installed on the robot already, is the vrbot GUI capable of downloading it itself on Win7?


No, the vrbot GUI will not connect to the robot.




3. Once the Robonova bridge program is installed on the Robot can the GUI operate correctly on Win 7?


Yes, the vrbot GUI will connect to the robot if the bridge program is already install on the robot.



4. If you are using a USB to RS232 converter, what is your brand/model?

ATEN USB to serial bridge. Model :GUC232A

[PedroR]

Hi Gort

Thank you very much for the information.

I will let the manufacturer know as this is currently the only issue with the VRbot gui at this point. (downloading the bridge program to a Robonova on Win 7 using an ATEN serial adapter).

As a temporary solution for this issue of using Win7+ATEN usb adapter you can do 2 things:
1) Use RoboBASIC to download the bridge program to Robonova and then connect to the Robot using the VRbot GUI.
2) Use a different usb to serial adapter (one not from ATEN)

I will also look up your post about Robobasic and Win7 to forward to them.

Thank you very much
Pedro.

[jorge]

Hi all!

I'm new to this forum and nearly a newbie in robot programmming. I registered because I started recently to work with the VRBot module and it seems it's still not documented enough in the webpage (VeeaR.eu)

My main problem is I am not using VRBot with robonova, but to add voice reconition control to my master thesis project in the University (TKK, in Finland). So, I use a serial port connection to an 8-Bit AT90CAN128 microcontroller.

Everything seems to go well with the voice recognition. I've teached some commands and it seems to recognize them. I also tested with hyperterminal that it works, giving the signals 'w' (so it's awake) and 'x' when typing 'x'.

The problem is with hyperterminal (or any other terminal I've tried so far) you can't see the signals that the VRBot module is actually understanding. That is, you say the trigger word and 2 secons later an instruction, but the serial port does not read anything. The problem is I need to know which are these signals to implement the code in the microcontroller.

I got the code from the VRGui, and this is one part of it:

CONST GROUP_0 = 0 '(Command count: 1)

CONST G0_SUPPORT = 0

CONST GROUP_1 = 1 '(Command count: 1)

CONST G1_TIGHTEN = 0

CONST GROUP_2 = 2 '(Command count: 6)

CONST G2_ZERO = 0
CONST G2_ONE = 1
CONST G2_TWO = 2
CONST G2_THREE = 3
CONST G2_FOUR = 4
CONST G2_FIVE = 5

So, I created 1 instruction for group 0 (trigger), 1 for group 1 (tighten) and 6 for group 2 (zero, one, two, three, four and five).

Reading the code I also got this:

' Inputs:
' VRA1 = wordset (0=trigger)
' Ouputs:
' VRA1 = result (0-31=word, 32..=builtin, 254=timeout, 255=error)
' for trigger N>1 are custom words

So, the instructions given to the VRBot to the microcontroller are CHAR type (in C) and a number between 0 and 31?

As this characters in ASCII code are not printable, this would explain why they are not seen in the terminal. Am I right?

Would then the microcontroller understand these signals if they were read from the serial port and then converted to binary (since a "char" won't work as they are not printable characters)?

This problem is mainly caused because I can only connect one serial bus to the microcontroller, so if I connect it to the VRBot module, I can't monitorize it with a terminal.


Thanks in advance!

[PedroR]

Hi

I would recommend that you use a Serial Port Monitor/Sniffer to analyse what's coming back and forth in Hex format (to make sure it's working properly).
I'm not sure but I believe the one I've used before is the one from HHD which you can find here http://www.hhdsoftware.com/Downloads/se ... -lite.html


In addition, I recommend that you get the latest version (v 1.3) of the VRBot Protocol Manual here http://robosavvy.com/store/product_info ... cts_id/571

This new version (1.3) of the Protocol Manual includes very thorough samples for VRbot operations such as SI recognition, SD recognition, recording new SD commands, etc.
I'm confident you will find this new information very helpful.

Regards
Pedro.

[jorge]

Wow, yes, there are a lot of examples in the 1.1.3 pdf (I had 1.1.2)... Thanks a lot!

I'll try now the serial monitor and see if I can solve all the problems this afternoon and make it work. But with the examples from the pdf I have all the info I need.

Now I receive signals from the VRbot module... It simply was not specting me to speak, that's why it did not send anything. Now it seems to recognize the signals and I configured some thins without the VRbot GUI (better for me, as I have to use linux most of the time)...

I will continue working on it...

Thanks again!