Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming

Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms

Providing Educational Prototypes

Andrej Skraba

, Vladimir Stanovov

, Eugene Semenkin

, Andrej Kolozvari

Radovan Stojanovic

and Davorin Kofjac

University of Maribor, Cybernetics & Decision Support System Laboratory, Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Kidriceva

Cesta 55a, Kranj, Slovenia

Siberian State Aerospace University, Computer Science and Telecommunications Institute,

31, Krasnoyarsky Rabochy Av., Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation

University of Montenegro, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Dzordza Vasingtona bb., Podgorica, Montenegro

Keywords: Cyber-Physical System, Internet of Things, Iot, Computer Cloud, HTML5, JavaScript, ECMAScript,

Node.Js, Robotic Platform, ROS, Robot Operating System.

Abstract: The paper describes the development of educational Cyber-Physical Robotic Platforms, remotely controlled

via cloud technologies. The platform is implemented using Parallax ActivityBot kit (only for mechanical

part), controlled by Arduino, and includes a Quad core ARM-processor Mini PC MK802 V5 LE running

Xubuntu Linux. The programming on the developed platform could be performed in JavaScript and HTML,

providing the web interface for controlling the system through Wi-Fi. Programming the platform is possible

through the Cloud9 IDE web interface, enabling rewriting the code or running different programs by the

user. Four equal platforms were implemented to address the need for the easily accessible educational

Cyber-Physical Robotic Platforms / Internet of Things hardware for students and tested in the experiment.

1 INTRODUCTION

When engaging the students to Cyber-physical &

Internet of Things (IoT) robotic platforms

development one usually faces many problems

connected to the difficluties with low-level

programming required for the hardware. Besides the

problems of different software solutions which are

needed for the platforms to work might also make

things harder. In this paper we present our

implementation of a simple Cyber-physical & IoT

platform, which uses a fully-functional Mini PC

with Linux onboard, Arduino, Node.js server and

cloud9 IDE. Programming in

JavaScript/ECMAScript is much easier than

programing in C, C++ or Java and other languages,

and enables designing a straightforward web

interface. Important aspect of such approach is, that

user interface could easily be developed while being

reliable and thoroughly tested. Once writen such

software could be run on any hardware as long as it

supports html / JavaScript (ECMAScript).

The resulting robotic platforms represent a

Cyber-physical system by integrating the physical

processes with processes of software and

communications. Cyber-physical systems connect

together several disciplines; computers,

communications, software and mechanical

engineering. Regarding the term “Cyber”, we would

suggest, that the platform could easily be controlled,

monitored and programmed on the internet (Kraijak

and Tuwanut 2015) with easy possiblity to

participate in e.g. social networks, harvesting the

cloud solutions, such as speech recognition (Škraba

et al., 2014, 2015b), motion tracking (Škraba et al.,

2015a) etc.

In the next section we will describe the hardware

architecture of the Cyber-Physical Robotic Platform

(CPRP), and in the second part we will move to the

software part. The main component of the robotic

platform is a Mini ARM A17 processor PC RKM

V5 LE with a Quad-core Rockchip RK3288 (RKM-

V5 2014.11.19) processor running with 2Gb RAM

and Xubuntu Linux (Ubuntu, 2016) version 14.10.

428

Skraba, A., Stanovov, V., Semenkin, E., Kolozvari, A., Stojanovic, R. and Kofjac, D.

Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms - Providing Educational Prototypes.

DOI: 10.5220/0005985204280435

In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics (ICINCO 2016) - Volume 2, pages 428-435

ISBN: 978-989-758-198-4

The Mini PC is connected to Arduino MEGA

(Arduino, 2016) based on ATMega 2560

microcontroller and the Logitech C270 HD 720p

webcam through USB. The operator can connect to

the platform through Wi-Fi using local address or

from the WAN.

2 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

2.1 Hardware Architecture

The main element on the platform which is shown in

Figure 1 and 2 is ARM based MK802 V5 LE Mini

PC with Xubuntu Linux installed (1). The Quad

Core MK802 V5 LE has significant processing

power and is a great enhancement form the previous

versions of MK802 versions and GK802. One has to

mention, that the power consumption of MK802 V5

LE is around 0.2A with fully operational Linux

running.

Figure 1: Side view of cyber-physical robotic platform.

The boot-time is also measured in seconds which is

significant improvement comparing to previous

versions of MK802. The MK802 V5 LE is

connected to the Arduino MEGA 2560

microcontroller over the USB (MK802 V5 LE has

two USB ports). The power to the Mini PC (1) is

provided using a Pololu step-down voltage regulator

(13), giving exactly 5 volts output, which drains the

current from five AA-sized NiMH accumulators

(12). The typical voltage of five accumulators is

around 6 volts. The servo motors, as well as the DC

motors receive power directly from the batteries.

The DC motors are driven by the TB6612FNG H-

bridge (3) connected to the Arduino (2). The

platform has two infrared sensors (6) to read the

frequency of each wheel, Parallax Ping))) (5)

ultrasonic sensor 28015 is mounted under the

camera (4) to measure the distance, together with a

laser pointer (7). CPRP includes two DC motors (15,

16) for the wheels (11), one for each of the two

wheels, one servo motor for triggering the gripper

(8) so that the platform is capable of grabbing

things, and two servos for adjusting the camera tilt,

in horizontal (9) and vertical (10) axis. Camera

position control mechanism was added in order to

provide better ability to monitor the surrounding

without the need to move entire platform. This

contributes to the lower power consumption and

better durability of the platform.

Figure 3 shows the hardware architecture of the

system, including connections between the devices.

The MK802 V5 LE Mini PC is the heart of the

system with Xubuntu installed it provides a solid

performance running needed software stack and

communicating with Arduino MEGA 2560

Microcontroller over USB. WebCam is also plugged

directly to the Mini PC providing the live video

stream from the CPRP. The Voltage regulator

provides +5V to Mini PC. Arduino is powered by

+6 V. CUR. SENS. is the current sensor, required to

measure the power consumption of the system.

Arduino controls the H-Bridge needed to run Left

and Right DC motors. Optical encoders on the

wheels of Activity-Bot are used as the feedback

about the wheels speed. By the encoders the precise

control is enabled giving the platforms the ability to

perform complicated navigation tasks. Here DIG

means digital signal, ANA – analog signal, PWM –

pulse-width modulation. ENC. L and ENC. R are the

left and right encoders respectively. The Mini PC

could be accessed via Wi-Fi connection. The web

router provides the interface for the smart devices,

such as phones, tablets, TVs and PCs. When

exposing the IP of the Mini PC to the outside world,

the platform could be accessed from the internet. It

is important, that not only the control and

monitoring of the CPRP could be performed but also

the programming, without the need to install

software on the client side. If you want to program

ROS, for example, all you need is a phone. By

connecting the CPRP to the cloud, the system could

harvest the cloud technology for example for speech

recognition (Škraba et al., 2014, 2015b) etc. The

typical power consumption is around 200mA when

the robot is not moving.

Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms - Providing Educational Prototypes

429

QUAD CORE A17

LINUX UBUNTU

MINI PC

ARM MK802 V5 LE

H-BRIDGE

XY CAM.

SERVO

MOTORS

LASER

POINTER

LEFT DC

MOTOR

GRIPPER

SERVO

DISTANCE

SENSOR

ENC. R

ENC. L

RIGHT DC

MOTOR

RDUINO MEGA

2560

MICROCONTROLER

VOLT

REG

BATT.

+5V

+6V

UTP

CLOUD /

INTERNET

PWM

PING

DIG

ANA DIG

DIG

USB

LOCAL PROG. & CONTROL

WEB PROG. & CONTROL

CAM

SMART DEVICES (PHONES,

TABLETS, TVS, PCS)

SMART DEVICES (PHONES,

TABLETS, TVS, PCS)

CUR.

SENS.

Figure 3: System hardware architecture.

Figure 2: Bottom view of cyber-physical platform.

2.2 Software Architecture

The program part includes the pre-installed Xubuntu

Linux system (based on Ubuntu Linux) installed on

the MiniPC, Node.js (node.js, 2015) for running the

server, and the following node packages: socket.io

(socket.io, 2016), firmata (firmata 2016) and johnny-

five (johnny-five, 2016). The last package is

required to handle the ultrasonic sensor, as this

functionality is not included with standard firmata.

On the Arduino the firmata C library is installed in

order to enable communication between Arduino

and software on the Mini PC, in our case over USB.

The video streaming is performed with the mjpg-

streamer library (mjpg, 2016). The mjpg-streamer

saves the jpeg-file on a disk every 200 ms, and then

this image is transferred to the user’s browser via

node.js server.

The Node.js server, providing the robot control

interface is started at port 8080, via socket.io

package. Node.js enables us to run JavaScript /

ECMAScript code on the server side using the

Google V8 engine. It is asynchronous event driven

framework designed to enable building of scalable

network applications. The johnny-five JavaScript

Robotics programming framework and firmata are

used to communicate with the Arduino, through

USB connection. The Arduino has pre-installed

PingFirmata, which allows using Parallax Ping)))

sensor.

For programming the platform the Cloud9 IDE

(Cloud9, 2016) web interface has been installed, so

that the operator can run different programs or

modify the code without connecting peripheral

devices, such as keyboard and monitor, and even

without seeing the platform. This enables new

opportunities in the field of cloud computing. In our

case, we have Cloud9 installed on wheeled

platforms and users could program them remotely

without the need to install any additional software,

the web browser on the client side is sufficient.

Cloud9 is open source online integrated

development environment.

In Figure 4 it is important to note, that the entire

platform is exposed to html5 / JavaScript /

ECMAScript for programming and control. Form

the user side only JavaScript is needed to program

advanced hardware solutions and even ROS (Codd-

Downey R. and Jenkin, 2015). There are certainly

limitations in latency, however for the educational

and even professional purposes (Škraba et al.,

2015b, Jiang et al., 2015) the proposed platform

ICINCO 2016 - 13th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

430

could be fully functional. By the pace of the network

hardware development the platform could be also

suitable for most demanding applications therefore it

would be worth to examine the capability of

JavaScript / ECMAScript for hardware development

(10).

html5 / JavaScript ~

ECMASCRIPT

Cloud9

IDE

socket.io

node.js

HTTPS web server

Xubuntu 14.10 Linux

USB link

Firmata

Mini ARM A17 PC

MK802 V5 LE

Arduino MEGA

2560 HW

Actuators and

Sensors -

WebCam

Logitech C270 HD

Firmata for

node.js

johnny-five

js library

mjpg

streamer

Figure 4: Software stack of the system.

Figure 5 shows the concept of programming

several CPRP over the web browser. In our case, we

have four CPRP with installed Cloud9, node.js,

firmata and Arduino. Mini PC is providing Wi-Fi

connectivity to the Wi-Fi router. User, from the

client side access all four platforms from the web

browser. This, as mentioned, significantly reduces

the effort of handling hardware, such as keyboards,

mice and monitors. User can only with Alt-Tab

switch between four platforms and work with all of

them from one computer. When developing ROS, it

is important, that the hardware is easily accessible.

Besides, if one uses Chrome, the superior debugging

capabilities are available for JavaScript. Node.js has

also good capabilities for debugging code on the

client side.

When all four platforms are active, they are

accessible through the Cloud9 web interfaces. Figure

6 shows the interfaces accessed from a local

network, with each robot having addresses

192.168.1.128-131 at port 8181. One could observe

four opened web-browsers, marked with numbers

from 1-4. If one would like to access the CPRP, one

should enter the address in the address line of the

web-browser, for example:

http:// 192.168.1.128-131:8181

and the user interface of Cloud9 would be accessed

as shown in Figure 6. Therefore, only by entering

the IP address of the platform, the fully functional

IDE Cloud9 is invoked and the programming of the

hardware CPRP could be started, by easily accessing

not only one but several CPRPs.

node.js

firmata

RDUI NO

Cloud9

node.js

firmata

ARDUINO

Cloud9

node.js

firmata

ARDUINO

Cloud9

node.js

firmata

ARDUINO

Cloud9

1234

Figure 5: Programming of four cyber-physical platforms

over web browser with Cloud9 IDE.

Programming the platforms can be performed

from both local net and internet, by several users at

the same time, as this functionality is implemented

in Cloud9.

In figures 7 and 8 the scripts for the automatic

start of the Cloud9 server are presented. Each

Cloud9 server starts automatically on power up

using upstart, which runs a simple script in c9sdk

folder, so there is no need to connect peripheral

devices and input any commands to access the web

interface. The interface can be accessed by any

smart devices, i.e. smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops

and even smart TVs. This easies the development

process and requires less equipment.

Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms - Providing Educational Prototypes

431

Figure 6: Four Cloud9 interfaces open with web browsers.

Figure 7: Upstart script, in /etc/init/nodetest.conf.

Figure 8: Script to start Cloud9 server in file

/home/cloudsto/c9sdk/autostart.sh.

The wheels frequency is controlled automatically

via PWM values for each motor independently by

the PID controller. We have used the standard

implementation for PID and adjusted the parameters

by hand to achieve the desired smoothness and

swiftness of movements. Figure 9 shows the

JavaScript code realization.

Figure 9: JavaScript code implementing PID regulator.

The PID algorithm parameters were the

following:

1.5, 0.75, 0.05.

pi d

KK K





Figure 10: Part of html file with JavaScript code on the

master CPR platform.

A simple robot operating system (ROS) has been

implemented to control several CPRPs with one

interface. The main idea of this is that the main, or

host CPRP produces the web user interface, through

which the commands are sent to other CPRPs. A

simple example is shown in figures 10 and 11,

where there are only two commands: move forward

and stop. In html file the connection to all four

CPRPs is established. In order to do this, the

socket.io library is used. For each robot, unique IP

with port is assigned. After the sockets have been

established, the event listener on the particular

button triggers the delivery of the Instructions to all

robots in the network.

In the JS file the flags represent the commands to

#!/bin/bash

cd c9sdk

sleep 10

node server.js --listen 192.168.1.128 -p 8181 -a

username:password

description "Cloud9 server"

env HOME="/home/cloudsto"

env USER="cloudsto"

start on filesystem or runlevel [2345]

task

exec /home/cloudsto/c9sdk/autostart.sh

sto

on shutdown

ICINCO 2016 - 13th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

432

the control algorithm to start moving the platform.

These commands are the same for all four platforms

and are trigged at the same time. This makes the

platforms move in exactly the same manner, while

the user works only with one web interface.

Figure 11: Part of JavaScript cod on each CPRP.

Figure 10 shows four robotic platforms

(Numbers 1-4) with output from the on-board

cameras, which is on the right side (Numbers 5-7).

Besides, one could observe real time camera stream

on the mobile phone together with user interface

(Number 9). This provides good possibility to

interact with the CPRP, since the outputs of the

platform could be easily conveyed to the internet.

Figure 12: Four robotic platforms with output from the on-

board cameras on monitor and smartphone.

Controlling four independent platforms provides

various possibilities for the cyber-physical system,

such as: moving objects, by the one robot, grabbing

objects, moving objects by cooperative behaviour of

several platforms, searching for some particular

place or object, interacting between the platforms,

and others. The platforms may be equipped with

additional software or hardware, such as gyroscopes,

magnetometers, LIDARs, infrared sensors, speakers

and any other sensors compatible with Arduino.

Figure 13: Example of a simple web interface used in

experiments.

An example of a simple web interface for

controlling the cyber-physical system is presented in

figure 13. This interface allows simple controlling of

the cyber-physical robotic platforms with several

buttons (3 and 4), allowing to adjust the camera tilt,

trigger the gripper, moving forward, backward, left

forward, left backward, right forward, right

backward, and spins right and left. Also a simple

speed control is available. The streaming from the

camera placed at the top of the interface. In figure 13

the web interface is accessed from the smartphone

(2) and the laptop (1) at the same time, giving an

opportunity to make a screenshot. The development

of entire user interface was done in html5 and

JavaScript / ECMAScript.

The main advantages of developed platform are:

a) The platform consist of Mini PC and

common webcam that might be used for several

other purposes not only for presented platform.

Besides, such an ARM Mini PC and webcam might

be already available to the students (as smart TV

dongle etc.) This lowers the cost of the

implementation. We have already tested the

platforms in classroom in laboratory exercises

giving the promising results.

b) The javascript (ECMAScript) with Cloud

9 IDE solves many problems with HW especially at

coding and usage. With multiple platforms this

showed to be essential. This is also useful for

development of simple Robot Operating Systems

Putting Cloud 9 IDE on the Wheels for Programming Cyber-Physical / Internet of Things Platforms - Providing Educational Prototypes

433

(ROS). The platform was partially used in classroom

and the combination of technologies showed to be

very well designed for the educational purposes.

3 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed

platform, a set of experiments has been performed

by four operators over the web interface performing

a simple task of finding an object, grabbing it and

bringing it back to the start position. Some of the

operators were experienced persons, who developed

the web interface and the platform, while the others

had never had an opportunity to control the robot.

The operators could only see the image from the

web camera, but not the robot itself. The starting

position and the position of the object was fixed, and

the object was out of sight from the starting position.

All experiments were performed with the same

platform. Figure 14 shows the test area schematics.

PICK

GO PICK

RETURN TO DROPOFF

START / FINISH

DROPOFF AREA

¼ m

Figure 14: Test area for the experiments.

The parameters which were measured for every task

are the total time, required to finish the task, and the

amount of energy consumed by the robot. The

energy consumption was calculated as the sum of

products of voltage, current and time interval

between measurements (150 ms) over the whole

running time. The running time was estimated as the

Table 1: Time required to perform the task, s.

Time User 1 User 2 User 3 User 4 Average

Test 1 223,2 270 338,4 314,08 286,42

Test 2 214,8 236,7 262,2 211,6 231,32

Test 3 206,4 252,2 249,3 239,6 236,88

Average 214,8 252,96 283,3 255,1 251,54

time between the first press of a button on the web

interface and the last press. Table 1 contains the time

intervals, measured for four users.

As table 1 shows, the first test was the least

successful for all participants, while the second one

was most successful (M1=214.8, SD1=8.4,

M2=260.7, SD2=36.6, t(13)=-3.95, p=0.005). This

happened because the participants have learned the

best way to control the platforms, avoid obstacles,

and grab the object as fast as possible. Table 2

contains the results on power consumption.

Table 2: Energy required to perform the task, kJ.

Energy User 1 User 2 User 3 User 4 Average

Test 1 0,828 1,034 1,242 1,176 1,079

Test 2 0,804 0,87 0,918 1,005 0,899

Test 3 0,807 0,927 0,981 0,933 0,912

Average 0,813 0,944 1,047 1,038 0,960

The energy consumption is highly correlated

(r=0.92) to the time required to perform the task, as

the main system component consumer is the

miniPC, which drains around 0.4 amps at 6.1 volts.

However, these results show that some operators

required more power to finish, for example user 2 on

test 2 consumed 0.87kJ, while user 4 on test 2 – 1kJ,

which is a 13% difference, while the time spent was

almost the same, 236,7 and 239,6 seconds

respectively. Figure 15 shows the graph of power

consumption for one of the tests.

Figure 15. Power consumption for test 3, user 2.

The graph has been smoothed, and the high peak

at the middle of time period corresponds to grabbing

the object, as the grabbing servo consumes quite a

lot of power while activated. Other peaks correspond

ICINCO 2016 - 13th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics

434

mainly to camera movements and changing

direction.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The developed four robotic platforms show a simple

way to create a complicated cyber-physical system,

capable of performing various tasks. The main task

of this particular system is to engage students into

development (Mostefaoui and Benachenhou, 2015),

providing them with hardware and software that is

easy to get and understand. Nevertheless, the

presented system is capable of solving more

sophisticated problems, as described in (Škraba et

al., 2015b) and (Škraba et al., 2015a) where a

speech-controlled wheelchair uses a similar system

architecture.

The main contribution of presented prototypes is

hardware-software combination that enables us to

easily program CPRPs in JavaScript / ECMAScript

and html5. Since the students are usually familiar

with mentioned technologies this might accelerate

the learning process as well as development of

professional solutions. Certainly, there are

limitations to professional use however, for

particular cases; the proposed architecture could be

the right way to perform some real world

implementations. The conducted experiments

showed the possibility to study the complex cyber-

physical interactions with subjects. It is interesting,

how only with the browser, one could access and

program sophisticated CPRPs and conduct exciting

experiments; what else could one want in order to

engage students?

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported in part by the Slovenian

Research Agency (ARRS) (Research program

“Decision support systems in electronic commerce”,

program No.: UNI-MB-0586-P5-0018), ARRS SI-

RF bilateral project »Development of Speech

Controlled Wheelchair for Disabled Persons as

Cyber-Physical System« Proj. No.:BI-ME/16-17-

022 and Russian Federation Presidential Scholarship

No. 16-in-689.

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