Getting Started

Index

Physical Buttons

There are four push buttons located on the back of the Ridgeback: The two red mushroom stop buttons, the stop reset button below the port side stop button, and the power ON/OFF button below the starboard side stop. These are described further below:

Power ON/OFF: Turns Ridgeback on or off. Note that the power button is a soft, momentary switch: to shut Ridgeback down, press and release it, and when the onboard PC has completed a safe power-down, the robot itself will de-power.
Stop (x2): Stops Ridgeback by placing the four integrated motor drivers into an electrical reset condition. This is intended as a backup option for immobilizing Ridgeback when autonomy software malfunctions or commands unintended motion. The stop buttons have a mechanical latch, which can be released by twisting the latched button.
Stop Reset: Clears the electrically-enforced stop latch, allowing Ridgeback to run again after it has been stopped via one of the stop buttons. Note that the mushroom button’s mechanical latch must be cleared before the electrical reset can have any effect.

How to turn Baxter-on-Ridgeback ON/OFF

First, switch on the Ridgeback platform
1. Press the power button on the back of Ridgeback.
2. Once the body lights are flashing red, clear the four stop buttons (if necessary).
3. Press the blinking red stop reset button. In a moment, the platform should go to solid red lights in back, and solid white in front.
Then, you can switch on the Baxter, thanks to the Power ON/OFF button on the back of the Baxter robot. Baxter is ready when the light ring on top of Baxter's head is solid green, and you can hear the LIDAR clicks with blinking yellow lights.

Body Lights

Ridgeback includes eight RGB body lights, stacked in a pair on each corner of the chassis. These lights express system status according to Table 2, but in the absence of one of the low-level conditions, they can be commanded from ROS to display indications from autonomy or other higher-level software. See http://wiki.ros.org/ridgeback_base for information on commanding the body lights.

Solid red: The MCU is not in contact with the computer. That is, the rosserial connection is not active. This condition will be seen briefly on startup while Ridgeback’s computer is booting up. If it persists, or is seen after initialization, either the base node on the PC has crashed, the network switch has failed, or a serious MCU error has occurred.
Red flashing: Stop circuit is broken. Twist the mushroom buttons to ensure that they are unlatched, and check any external stop hardware, if present.
Yellow corner flashing: All stops are closed but not reset, the stop loop is now only electrically latched. Press the stop reset button to enable full operation.
Flashing yellow: Motor drivers not yet ready to drive. The motors have a brief initialization sequence which must complete after a stop condition clears before they are ready to drive. If this condition persists, please contact support.
Fading green: Charger is connected, Ridgeback’s battery is charging. Note that the battery can also be charged with the platform off. This indication will only be seen if the charger is connected while Ridgeback is powered up.
Headlights/taillights: When Ridgeback is ready to drive, the front will change from red to white. The intensity of the head and tail lights will increase slightly when actually in motion. This is the status which may be overridden by publishing your own light patterns to the cmd_lights ROS topic.

How to drive Ridgeback with the provided PS4 Controller

Press the PS button on the Sony Bluetooth controller to sync the controller to Ridgeback. Once the #1 LED on the top of the controller goes solid, you’re paired and ready to drive.

If the Bluetooth connection can't be established, follow the instructions from the Installation section: