This tutorial will be going over the Sensor Monitor Service.  The Sensor Monitor allows you to visualize and combine data from sensors.  In addition it allows simple triggers or alerts to be fired to affect behavior depending on preset sensor thresholds.  Since MRL can be distributed over multiple computers and multiple platforms, the sensors from those different computers can be easily combined and evaluated.  Being capable of remote data logging, you can monitor that weather station in Antarctica or help a friend diagnose a problem on there bot !

The steps

  • load arduinoSerial.pde into your Arduino or Arduino Clone - you can download it from here
  • download MRL (latest version from from here) - the file will look like myrobotlab-xxxx.zip - you do not need thirdParty libraries as SensorMonitor does not have any thirdParty dependencies
  • start MRL double click myrobotlab.bat or myrobotlab.sh depending on what OS you are using (.bat for Windows .sh for Linux or OSX)
  • load an Arduino service from the "services" panel
  • load a ServiceMonitor service from the "service" panel
  • be sure to attach the Arduino service to the correct USB/serial port - if you have more than one you must select the appropriate one.  If you have just one, it should be automatically selected.
  • add a trace from the Arduino & pin you are interested in
  • watch the pretty graph 
  • let me know if it has been helpful, how you are using it, and what can be done to improve it.

 

 

 

Bugs and Weird Things

  • If your going to connect remotely (2 computers) then make sure 1. All there services on both computers are all that you need. Once they connect there is no concept of refreshing the remote instance.  2. There can be no name conflicts. As you add and name new services or connect to remote systems, there can be no 2 services with the same name.
  • If you terminate MRL while a trace is running - you probably will need to reload the arduinoSerial.pde .  If you remove the trace before terminating, you should not need to reload the Arduino.

Future

Tutorial on a Service creation.

Support other boards besides Arduino, Propeller, Launch-Pad, etc, so all boards can talk to one another as one big happy sky-net family !

Bwa ha ha ha - All Are Arduinos Belong to Us!