Python library to interact with Move Hub

Move Hub is central controller block of LEGO® Boost Robotics Set.

In fact, Move Hub is just Bluetooth hardware, all manipulations are done with commands passed through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless protocol. One of ways to issue these commands is to write Python program using this library.

Best way to start is to look into demo.py file, and run it (assuming you have installed library).

If you have Vernie assembled, you might run scripts from examples/vernie directory.

Demonstrational videos:

Features

• auto-detect and connect to Move Hub device
• auto-detects peripheral devices connected to Hub
• constant, angled and timed movement for motors, rotation sensor subscription
• color & distance sensor: several modes to measure distance, color and luminosity
• tilt sensor subscription: 2 axis, 3 axis, bump detect modes
• LED color change
• push button status subscription
• battery voltage subscription available
• permanent Bluetooth connection server for faster debugging

Usage

Please note that this library requires one of Bluetooth backend libraries to be installed, please read section here for details.

Install library like this:

pip install https://github.com/undera/pylgbst/archive/0.9.tar.gz

Then instantiate MoveHub object and start invoking its methods. Following is example to just print peripherals detected on Hub:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub

hub = MoveHub()

for device in hub.devices:
    print(device)

Controlling Motors

MoveHub provides motors via following fields:

• motor_A - port A
• motor_B - port B
• motor_AB - motor group of A+B manipulated together
• motor_external - external motor attached to port C or D

Methods to activate motors are:

• constant(speed_primary, speed_secondary) - enables motor with specified speed forever
• timed(time, speed_primary, speed_secondary) - enables motor with specified speed for time seconds, float values accepted
• angled(angle, speed_primary, speed_secondary) - makes motor to rotate to specified angle, angle value is integer degrees, can be negative and can be more than 360 for several rounds
• stop() - stops motor at once, it is equivalent for constant(0)

Parameter speed_secondary is used when it is motor group of motor_AB running together. By default, speed_secondary equals speed_primary. Speed values range is -1.0 to 1.0, float values. Note: In group angled mode, total rotation angle is distributed across 2 motors according to motor speeds ratio.

All these methods are synchronous by default, means method does not return untill it gets confirmation from Hub that command has completed. You can pass async=True parameter to any of methods to switch into asynchronous, which means command will return immediately, without waiting for rotation to complete. Be careful with asynchronous calls, as they make Hub to stop reporting synchronizing statuses.

An example:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub
import time

hub = MoveHub()

hub.motor_A.timed(0.5, 0.8)
hub.motor_A.timed(0.5, -0.8)

hub.motor_B.angled(90, 0.8)
hub.motor_B.angled(-90, 0.8)

hub.motor_AB.timed(1.5, 0.8, -0.8)
hub.motor_AB.angled(90, 0.8, -0.8)

hub.motor_external.constant(0.2)
time.sleep(2)
hub.motor_external.stop()

Motor Rotation Sensors

Any motor allows to subscribe to its rotation sensor. Two sensor modes are available: rotation angle (EncodedMotor.SENSOR_ANGLE) and rotation speed (EncodedMotor.SENSOR_SPEED). Example:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub, EncodedMotor
import time

def callback(angle):
    print("Angle: %s" % angle)

hub = MoveHub()

hub.motor_A.subscribe(callback, mode=EncodedMotor.SENSOR_ANGLE)
time.sleep(60) # rotate motor A
hub.motor_A.unsubscribe(callback)

Tilt Sensor

MoveHub's internal tilt sensor is available through tilt_sensor field. There are several modes to subscribe to sensor, providing 2-axis, 3-axis and bump detect data.

An example:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub, TiltSensor
import time

def callback(pitch, roll, yaw):
    print("Pitch: %s / Roll: %s / Yaw: %s" % (pitch, roll, yaw))

hub = MoveHub()

hub.tilt_sensor.subscribe(callback, mode=TiltSensor.MODE_3AXIS_FULL)
time.sleep(60) # turn MoveHub block in different ways
hub.tilt_sensor.unsubscribe(callback)

TiltSensor sensor mode constants:

• MODE_2AXIS_SIMPLE - use callback(state) for 2-axis simple state detect
• MODE_2AXIS_FULL - use callback(roll, pitch) for 2-axis roll&pitch degree values
• MODE_3AXIS_SIMPLE - use callback(state) for 3-axis simple state detect
• MODE_3AXIS_FULL - use callback(roll, pitch) for 2-axis roll&pitch degree values
• MODE_BUMP_COUNT - use callback(count) to detect bumps

There are tilt sensor constants for "simple" states, for 2-axis mode their names are also available through TiltSensor.DUO_STATES:

• DUO_HORIZ - "HORIZONTAL"
• DUO_DOWN - "DOWN"
• DUO_LEFT - "LEFT"
• DUO_RIGHT - "RIGHT"
• DUO_UP - "UP"

For 3-axis simple mode map name is TiltSensor.TRI_STATES with values:

• TRI_BACK - "BACK"
• TRI_UP - "UP"
• TRI_DOWN - "DOWN"
• TRI_LEFT - "LEFT"
• TRI_RIGHT - "RIGHT"
• TRI_FRONT - "FRONT"

Color & Distance Sensor

Field named color_distance_sensor holds instance of ColorDistanceSensor, if one is attached to MoveHub. Sensor has number of different modes to subscribe.

Colors that are detected are part of COLORS map (see LED section). Only several colors are possible to detect: BLACK, BLUE, CYAN, YELLOW, RED, WHITE. Sensor does its best to detect best color, but only works when sample is very close to sensor.

Distance works in range of 0-10 inches, with ability to measure last inch in higher detail.

Simple example of subscribing to sensor:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub, ColorDistanceSensor
import time

def callback(clr, distance):
    print("Color: %s / Distance: %s" % (clr, distance))

hub = MoveHub()

hub.color_distance_sensor.subscribe(callback, mode=ColorDistanceSensor.COLOR_DISTANCE_FLOAT)
time.sleep(60) # play with sensor while it waits   
hub.color_distance_sensor.unsubscribe(callback)

Subscription mode constants in class ColorDistanceSensor are:

• COLOR_DISTANCE_FLOAT - default mode, use callback(color, distance) where distance is float value in inches
• COLOR_ONLY - use callback(color)
• DISTANCE_INCHES - use callback(color) measures distance in integer inches count
• COUNT_2INCH - use callback(count) - it counts crossing distance ~2 inches in front of sensor
• DISTANCE_HOW_CLOSE - use callback(value) - value of 0 to 255 for 30 inches, larger with closer distance
• DISTANCE_SUBINCH_HOW_CLOSE - use callback(value) - value of 0 to 255 for 1 inch, larger with closer distance
• LUMINOSITY - use callback(luminosity) where luminosity is float value from 0 to 1
• OFF1 and OFF2 - seems to turn sensor LED and notifications off
• STREAM_3_VALUES - use callback(val1, val2, val3), sends some values correlating to distance, not well understood at the moment

Tip: laser pointer pointing to sensor makes it to trigger distance sensor

LED

MoveHub class has field led to access color LED near push button. To change its color, use set_color(color) method.

You can obtain colors are present as constants COLOR_* and also a map of available color-to-name as COLORS. There are 12 color values, including COLOR_BLACK and COLOR_NONE which turn LED off.

Additionally, you can subscribe to LED color change events, using callback function as shown in example below.

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub, COLORS, COLOR_NONE, COLOR_RED
import time

def callback(clr):
    print("Color has changed: %s" % clr)

hub = MoveHub()
hub.led.subscribe(callback)

hub.led.set_color(COLOR_RED)
for color in COLORS:
    hub.led.set_color(color)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    
hub.led.set_color(COLOR_NONE)
hub.led.unsubscribe(callback)

Tip: blinking orange color of LED means battery is low.

Push Button

MoveHub class has field button to subscribe to button press and release events.

Note that Button class is not real Peripheral, as it has no port and not listed in devices field of Hub. Still, subscribing to button is done usual way:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub

def callback(is_pressed):
    print("Btn pressed: %s" % is_pressed)

hub = MoveHub()
hub.button.subscribe(callback)

Power Voltage & Battery

MoveHub class has field voltage to subscribe to battery voltage status. Callback accepts single parameter with current value. The range of values is float between 0 and 1.0. Every time data is received, value is also written into last_value field of Voltage object. Values less than 0.2 are known as lowest values, when unit turns off.

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub
import time

def callback(value):
    print("Voltage: %s" % value)

hub = MoveHub()
hub.voltage.subscribe(callback)
time.sleep(1)
print ("Value: " % hub.voltage.last_value)

General Notes

Bluetooth Backend Prerequisites

You have following options to install as Bluetooth backend:

• pip install pygatt - pygatt lib, works on both Windows and Linux
• pip install gatt - gatt lib, supports Linux, does not work on Windows
• pip install gattlib - gattlib - supports Linux, does not work on Windows, requires sudo

Running on Windows requires Bluegiga BLED112 Bluetooth Smart Dongle hardware piece, because no other hardware currently works on Windows with Python+BLE.

Please let author know if you have discovered any compatibility/preprequisite details, so we will update this section to help future users

Depending on backend type, you might need Linux sudo to be used when running Python.

Bluetooth Connection Options

There is optional parameter for MoveHub class constructor, accepting instance of Connection object. By default, it will try to use whatever get_connection_auto() returns. You have several options to manually control that:

• use pylgbst.get_connection_auto() to attempt backend auto-choice, autodetect uses
• use BlueGigaConnection() - if you use BlueGiga Adapter (pygatt library prerequisite)
• use GattConnection() - if you use Gatt Backend on Linux (gatt library prerequisite)
• use GattoolConnection() - if you use GattTool Backend on Linux (pygatt library prerequisite)
• use GattLibConnection() - if you use GattLib Backend on Linux (gattlib library prerequisite)
• pass instance of DebugServerConnection if you are using Debug Server (more details below).

All the functions above have optional arguments to specify adapter name and MoveHub mac address. Please look function source code for details.

If you want to specify name for Bluetooth interface to use on local computer, you can passthat to class or function of getting a connection. Then pass connection object to MoveHub constructor. Like this:

from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub
from pylgbst.comms.cgatt import GattConnection

conn = GattConnection("hci1")
conn.connect()  # you can pass MoveHub mac address as parameter here, like 'AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF'

hub = MoveHub(conn)

Use Disconnect in finally

It is recommended to make sure disconnect() method is called on connection object after you have finished your program. This ensures Bluetooth subsystem is cleared and avoids problems for subsequent re-connects of MoveHub. The best way to do that in Python is to use try ... finally clause:

from pylgbst import get_connection_auto
from pylgbst.movehub import MoveHub

conn=get_connection_auto()  # ! don't put this into `try` block
try:
    hub = MoveHub(conn)
finally:
    conn.disconnect()

Devices Detecting

As part of instantiating process, MoveHub waits up to 1 minute for all builtin devices to appear, such as motors on ports A and B, tilt sensor, button and battery. This not guarantees that external motor and/or color sensor will be present right after MoveHub instantiated. Usually, sleeping for couple of seconds gives it enough time to detect everything.

Subscribing to Sensors

Each sensor usually has several different "subscription modes", differing with callback parameters and value semantics.

There is optional granularity parameter for each subscription call, by default it is 1. This parameter tells Hub when to issue sensor data notification. Value of notification has to change greater or equals to granularity to issue notification. This means that specifying 0 will cause it to constantly send notifications, and specifying 5 will cause less frequent notifications, only when values change for more than 5 (inclusive).

It is possible to subscribe with multiple times for the same sensor. Only one, very last subscribe mode is in effect, with many subscriber callbacks allowed to receive notifications.

Good practice for any program is to unsubscribe from all sensor subscriptions before ending, especially when used with DebugServer.

Debug Server

Running debug server opens permanent BLE connection to Hub and listening on TCP port for communications. This avoids the need to re-start Hub all the time.

There is DebugServerConnection class that you can use with it, instead of BLEConnection.

Starting debug server is done like this (you may need to run it with sudo, depending on your BLE backend):

python -c "import logging; logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG); \
                import pylgbst; pylgbst.start_debug_server()"

Then push green button on MoveHub, so permanent BLE connection will be established.

Roadmap & TODO

• document all API methods
• make sure unit tests cover all important code
• make debug server to re-establish BLE connection on loss

Links

• https://github.com/JorgePe/BOOSTreveng - source of protocol knowledge
• https://github.com/spezifisch/sphero-python/blob/master/BB8joyDrive.py - example with another approach to bluetooth libs

Some things around visual programming:

• https://github.com/RealTimeWeb/blockpy
• https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/App_Inventor
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockly