It has been a while since I touched based. My project ran into a brick wall re: indoor navigation, even when working with the suppliers Estimote and MarvelMind.
Anyway I spotted the new gear from Slamtec and the SDP Mini RPlidar Experimental 2WD Robot. After reading some of the material on the Slamtec site this look very promising.
I see the advertised mini comes with the RPlidar A2 model; is there a new version available with the new A3 LiDAR?
I also see it can be used in a Windows environment and I expect that there is simple serial interface that you can send commands to and receive data from. As such, will be using that interface with my VB.Net development application.
If this is possible I will have one of these babies to test. and then I can dismantle it and integrate it into my RoboChair; or
Can I buy the components, rpLidar A3, the Slamware core model and what they call the breakout board (micro-controller that the Slamware module plugs into)?
Doug
ps the datasheets on you web page robotshop.com/en/sdp-mini-r … tform.html have many references to Slamtec webpages, unfortunately they are all in Chinese. Is there an English version of their technical documentation?
pps I just heard back from Slamtec they are still in the process of creating English versions of the documentation
Here is some information concerning your questions & comments:
Sounds like it may be helpful for your project. Just note that SLAM is still not a perfect solution by itself, either, since large objects that change positions can affect landmark recognition.
At this time all that we have in stock come with the A2. It may be possible for us to switch one though, providing it is compatible with no other changes. If you want to explore this option further, please contact us through our support center.
The SDP mini includes two main components (other than the small rover platform itself): 1) the RPLidar; 2) the Slamware solution for integrated SLAM.
We do not currently offer the Slamware module by itself or the micro-controller board. That can also be looked into as a special order. Again, best to open a support ticket for such custom requests.
Good to hear it is still getting attention. This is important for such a project!
Indeed, the current documentation available in English is not sufficient. We know they are working on it and we will post some as soon as we have it available to us.
Good luck with the project! Looking forward to see how this is all going to go!
Update: I have just purchased a SDP Mini from you, order #698454
Hi Sébastien
Thanks for response, always appreciated. You confused me with one part of response about the version of the RPlidar “At this time all that we have in stock come with the A3” I just fired off a message to your Support Centre (T433582) If the A3 is part of the SDP Mini … I will take one. I note that SLAM is not perfect, nothing is. I have been sharing information about my project with a senior researcher at the Stonybrook University (SBU) in New York who are working on a similar project and they too have indoor navigation problems.
BTW I bought a Snapmaker 3D printer and have been designing and making bespoke parts for my RoboChair. It is a great fun.
Take care and have a great week
Thank you I received my SDP Mini on Wednesday. Note fro your records. I have been in touch with Slamtec Support a number of times and they a great and helpful. Firstly, much of their documentation is still in Chinese, however they are busy creating English versions.
Secondly and important for me, I found out that their Windows SDK is developed with VS2010 C++ , does not help when I run VS2017 They apologised for this. Luckily I still had a copy and reinstalled it, caught up with all of its maintenance. I had no luck running their SDK examples and have sent details back to support, so this may be a protracted exercise in getting the best use of the SDP Mini.
I will let you know if we make progress and get some success. I followed one of the examples, verbatim from the SDK API document to create a basic program and it it failed. I have sent details to Slamtec support and they came back to upgrade the VS2010 to SP1… my response was that it was already on SP1 when the error occurred. I await the next response. This little device has the functionality that I am after for my project… I just need to tap into it.
Must admit the turnaround time on their support is very good.
I was trying to work out why they were using VS2010 for such new hardware then I realised they would have been using it for years on previous models of their RPLIDAR and continue to use it on their new hardware.
I have fired off a number of emails to [email protected] and to their credit they have been excellent at replying. A few issues on the at the moment installed a copy of VS2010 however I cannot get their SDK to run in it. I followed their instructions verbatim from the API document and no luck. Secondly their slamware_console.exe application is not working for me. I have sent many emails to do with errors in their documentation and I understand how tough it is to translate from Chinese to English so I will help where I can.
The SDP Min runs well from the mobile phone app RoboHome
I am just starting to use the RoboStudio Windows based application and it seems fine so far. It has a few quirks, which I have sent an email to them about.
I have been reading a lot of their documentation (SDK and other bits) and this is a great bit of technology and achieves all that I am after… I just need to be able to integrate it into my application which is VS2017
BTW, do you sell the Slamware Core module and Breakout board separately? If I get the SDP Mini to work I will look to adding this kit to my RoboChair or I will have to dismantle the SDP Mini.
Have a great week.
Doug
ps. If you look at the SDK for the A2 RPLIDAR it uses VS2010… not very good, you should suggest they update their development platform
Glad to learn you were able to have some progress.
I agree with you, using VS 2010 for the SDK is rather dated, but this is most likely simple kept as-is because that is the version of VS they used when they made their first SDK for the original RPLidar. We’ll have to wait for them to update, I figure.
We do not currently offer the Slamware Core module by itself. That being said, if there is enough interest we will most likely pursue this. If you contact us through the support center about it, we may be able to get it as a special order, so check in with us that way.
I have been sending a number of support emails to Slamtec and to their credit they have been replying promptly. The big issue I have with them at the moment is that their technology is great, however their Windows SDK is based on using Microsoft 's Visual Studio 2010 SP1 which is well out of date and many developers have been on VS2017 for the last year.
I installed a copy of VS2010 (luckily I still had a copy), brought all its maintenance up to date and tried the SDK. Unfortunately I could not get any of the SDK samples to run and I sent emails to the Slamtec Support team. The following response came in today
These sort of problem are mostly IDE-related, currently we don’t have a standard solution for this, some recommendations from our side, switch to another PC or reinstall VS2010. maybe you can find some other solutions on the Internet.
I have responded that I shall try this however I implored them to upgrade their SDK if they want to get sales from modern developers. I also stated that I will be passing on this experience to online forums. At this stage I could not recommend acquiring this SDP Mini device if you intend development on a Windows platform.
Thanks for the update and sorry to hear about your experience with the SDK.
While the SDK (most likely) cannot be used be used directly in a modern VS setup (such as 2017, which is what I also use exclusively), the code and structure offered could still be used in a new solution, right?
I mean, it still offers quite a bit of information that should be relevant to users.
I agree,I too only use VS2017. I tried upgrading and retargeting their SDK, into VS2017 however therewere a huge number of errors. The SDK is complex in that there are a huge number of modules. So picking through them will be a large job. It would be nice just to find a command set that you can send through a serial port (hahaha), unfortunately this won’t be an easy job to convert.
I even asked them about the onboard USB port and could command streams be sent through it, alas the answer was no. The USB port is only used as an output for diagnostic information.
I await the response to my last reply to them before I tediously pick through the thousand of SDK modules. Keep in mind my skills are predominantly in VB.NET and the SDK is C++ which I basically understand.
Needless to say I am frustrated by this problem as the technology and functionality of the SDP Mini is exactly what I have been trying to achieve with my work on my RoboChair and I was hoping that I could use the SDP Mini circuits as a component of my RoboChair.
A quick update. As you can imagine I have been firing off a number of support emails to SLAMTEC about the SDK issues. My last email implored them to upgrade their SDK to a later version, amongst a few other suggestions and here is their positive response.
"we are already aware of that problem, and we are trying to improve it. Thanks again for all your feedback."
The Slamtec technology is great, only if we could develop programs to use it. The SDP Mini works well with their supplied applications, RoboHome on mobile phone and RoboStudio on Windows PC.
If you have contact with Slamtec, please add your voice to recommending that they update their SDK platform. I also suggested the possibility of creating an API .dll module whereby a developer could include it in the program and just makes calls to the functions; much neater than dealing with thousands of SDK C++ modules.
Glad to hear they are responding to your concern and requests for support. I sure hope they are able to (at the very least) produce a VS2017 compatible SDK.
Having to work with VS2008 (and a Win7 VM!) for some software I have to maintain, I have to say I really prefer moving things off to newer software that performs far better and is much easier to use.
As for a DLL or group of DLLs to expose the API, that sounds like a great plan! I’d even go a step further and recommend a full .NET wrapper should be made, too, once the C++ API DLL(s) is completed!
I agree with you, however I think that I would be pushing it up hill to suggest that one. I think it will be a big effort fro them just to get it to V2017, never mind the API suggestion.
As one of the four retailers listed on their website, I should think that they would listen more wisely to you advice. I suggested to them that staying on VS2010 would limit their sales.and as great as the technology is new project by developers would not use VS2010. I have guessed the VS2010 use on the SLAM Core modules is just a hangover of the support fro their RPLIDAR devices that began life back in 2012.
Take care and have a great week. I shall provide you updates when received.
I was able to load VS2010 on a clean WIN10 PC, apply all of its maintenance updates … and run some of the test code from the SDK…except
The test produced a windows and the language was all in Chinese; see below.
I have sent their support group all the details.
So even when you get the SDK working on the old VS2010, you have to be able to read Chinese.
This is going to be a slow exercise me thinks
BTW, I have had a lot more contact with Estimote who i have been dealing with over the last few years. they have just released a Robotics SDK and they can connect one of their UWB beacons to a Raspberry PI and place it on a mobile robot. I had phone discussions with them on using the Raspberry to interface to my RoboChair WIN10 tablet and my software to pass over location coordinate data and it is looking good.
Estimote really are great and have known my needs for the last couple of years. They are now in the process of testing some code and will build an image for the Raspberry for me to use.
Recent comment from Slamtec on their SDK… I have strongly suggested that they upgrade it from VS2010 to VS2017.
By staying with the old VS2010 they are making their product unattractive to modern developers who will not waste their time trying to get VS2010 working in Windows10 (which it will on a clean machine).
Slamtec don’t realise that many developers use other development controls such as Infragistic and some of them will not work with VS2010
I have given up on Slamtec for the time being and will revisit in six months. You might want to warn buyers considering one of these units
It is unfortunate that this does not work well for your use case. That being said considering the huge popularity of the project we expect we would be getting far more feedback concerning SDK issues if it was a problem for the majority of users. I feel you may (unfortunately) be in a very small minority on this one.
Of course, a better, more usable SDK is always a desired thing and I’m sure they’ll do their best to improve upon it.
Also, I know that many users of these types of products use ROS when doing SLAM, so I figure this is why they are not faced with significant issues concerning this device and its SDK.
Keep us updated on what you’ll be using for your SLAM needs!
