Changes

=Hacking the Neato XV-11=

What is the Neato XV-11 you ask?? The Neato XV-11(Wikipedia) is a robot which vacuum’s your house. It is unlike any other however because it includes a low cost 360 degree laser distance scanner (LIDAR See Wikipedia). This can be removed from the XV-11 and used in your own robotics projects or used within the XV-11 with the help of the Robot Operating System (ROS). The pages within this wiki document interfacing methods into the XV-11 and is open to anyone who wants to help. For $399 you can’t find a better robotics platform in my opinion, definitely worth the cost even if you do nothing more than strip it down for parts. You will find it is very well constructed by some people who definitely know about robotics.

==Connecting to ROS==

'''<br />The following procedure will help you install the Robot Operating System on Ubuntu 10.10 for use with the XV-11.'''

From this point you need to create your own map using gmapping and save the map so a map of your area is loaded when launching 2dnav_neato. gmapping needs to be modified from the base install on your system at this point to correct the reversed laser scan data. This wiki will be updated shortly with that procedure. gmapping is what will allow you to create a map of your surroundings which you will use to navigate.

Pictorial instructions for disassembling and reassembling an XV-11 can be found at the [http://www.hbrobotics.org/ Homebrew Robotics Club] wiki linked off of the page: [http://hbrobotics.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dave%27s_XV-11_notes Dave’s XV-11 Notes]. There are a few other XV-11 notes there as well, such as how to tap into the battery supply, and I’ll be adding more as I go along. I’m too lazy to update two wiki’s so I’ve decided to make the HBRC wiki my ‘home’ and cross-link from here to there and there to here. Anyway, the disassembly/reassembly instructions were done because I kept forgetting where all the screws go.

Hope it helps.

A version 2.6 Neato XV-11 can be reverted to a previous firmware by pressing and holding the Back button (curved arrow) and the orange Start button at the same time for 4 seconds. When the robot reboots it will be running an older firmware with all the previous commands available.