Contents
Installation
Overview
The Merlin MiabotPRO is a small autonomous mobile robot featuring a high precision drive train, dual processor design, onboard wireless communications (Bluetooth,RF) with extensive support for additional peripherals.
The Miabot has an onboard firmware API with PID and full feature access via simple ASCII interface, making control of the robot from any programming language/development platform very easy. The robot is widely used internationally for advanced robotics research and development.
miabotPro Mobile Robot - 65mm x 65mm x 65mm
MiabotPRO Accessories
Supported accessories:
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*Intelligent Camera 
*Compass 
*Omni-Directional Sonar 
*Starboard 
*Gripper 
*Line Following Module
ROS Miabot Driver Support (V1.0-Beta)
The Miabot PRO ROS driver implements the odometry source messages “odom” and can process the geometry_msgs/Twist messages. The Miabot PRO driver can initiate a TCP/IP link with the robot wirelessly using a couple of methods. Either via a built in Bluetooth module (used when communication with a small number of robots) or via a Bluetooth server (which is used when communication with large numbers of robot e.g. over 7 upto around 50).
In either case a socket is initiated to communicate with the robot on a given host/port combination. The following instructions illustrate how to communicate using a Bluetooth dongle or built-in Bluetooth facility.
Other Features
Within the miabot program terminal you can type commands between '[' and '] which correspond to any of the API supported commands and parameters. See [3] below in the resource links for more information. Eventually all these features will be supported as parameters/messages within ROS.
Links to other resources
[2] Command & parameter summary
[3] Product page