Pioneer 3™ Operations Manual

What is Pioneer?
Joydrive Mode
Finally, we provide onboard software and controller hardware that let you drive the
robot from a tethered joystick when not otherwise connected with a controlling client.
See Chapter 4 for more details.
THE PIONEER LEGACY
Commercially introduced in
the summer of 1995, Pioneer
1 was the original platform.
Intended mostly for indoor
use on hard, flat surfaces,
the robot had solid rubber
tires and a two-wheel
differential, reversible drive Figure 6. The original Pioneer 1 and Pioneer AT
system with a rear caster for
balance. It came with a single-board 68HC11-based robot controller and the Pioneer
Server Operating System (PSOS) software. The Pioneer 1 also came standard with seven
sonar range finders (two side-facing and five forward-facing) and integrated wheel
encoders. Its low-cost and high-performance caused an explosion in the number of
researchers and developers who now have access to a real, intelligent mobile robotic
platform.
Software-wise, the Pioneer 1 initially served as a
platform for SRI International's AI/fuzzy logicbased
Saphira robotics applications
development. But it wasn't long before Pioneer’s
open architecture became the popular platform
for the development of a variety of alternative
robotics software environments.
Pioneer AT
Functionally and programmatically identical to
the Pioneer 1, the four-wheel drive, skid-steer
Pioneer AT was introduced in the summer of 1997
for operation in uneven indoor and outdoor
environments, including loose, rough terrain.
Except for the drive system, there were no
operational differences between the Pioneer AT
and the Pioneer 1: The integrated sonar arrays
and controllers were the same; they shared
accessories; and applications developed for the
Pioneer 1 worked with little or no porting on the
AT.
Pioneer 2 and PeopleBot
Figure 7. Performance PeopleBot
sports an attractive body design
with advanced technologies for
human-interaction research and
applications.
The next generation of Pioneer, including the Pioneer 2-DX, -CE, and -AT, introduced in
fall of 1998 through summer of 1999, improved upon the Pioneer 1 legacy while retaining
its many important advantages. 2 Indeed, in most respects, particularly with applications
2 Price/performance ratio included! The much more capable and expandable Pioneer 2 was introduced four
years later for just a few hundred dollars (US) more than the original Pioneer 1.
8