Controlling the Robot with an Xbox Controller

Xbox Controller example allows users to control a Spot robot through an Xbox controller. The example was tested with an Xbox 360 wired controller. The button mapping is:

Button Combination	Functionality
A	Walk
B	Stand
X	Sit
Y	Stairs
LB + :
- D-pad up/down	Walk height
- D-pad left	Battery-Change Pose
- D-pad right	Self right
- Y	Jog
- A	Amble
- B	Crawl
- X	Hop
If Stand Mode
- Left Stick
-- X	Rotate body in roll axis
-- Y	Control height
- Right Stick
-- X	Turn body in yaw axis
-- Y	Turn body in pitch axis
Else
- Left Stick	Move
- Right Stick	Turn
LB + RB + B	E-Stop
Start	Motor power & Control
Back	Exit

User Guide

Installation

For your best learning experience, please use the Quickstart Guide found in the SDK’s docs/python directory. That will help you get your Python programming environment setup properly.

OS-Specific Dependencies

This example has external dependencies to communicate with an XBox controller, and those dependencies are OS-specific.

Ubuntu: On Ubuntu 18.04, the example uses the xboxdrv driver to communicate with the controller, so please install the driver by executing:

sudo apt-get install xboxdrv

The xboxdrv driver supports only Xbox360 controllers. Newer controllers are not supported.

Windows: On Windows, the example uses XInput-Python package, which is automatically installed with the pip command below. The XInput package officially supports Xbox360 controllers, but newer controllers also work with this example on Windows.

MacOS: This example is not supported on MacOS.

Installation Instructions

To install this example on Ubuntu 18.04 and Windows, follow these instructions:

• Create virtual environment as described in this Quickstart Guide virtualenv section

• Install dependencies: python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

• Run the example using instructions in the next section

• To exit the virtual environment, run deactivate

Execution

This example follows the common pattern for expected arguments. It needs the common arguments used to configure the SDK and connect to a Spot:

• hostname passed as the last argument

• username and password should be set in the environment variables BOSDYN_CLIENT_USERNAME and BOSDYN_CLIENT_PASSWORD.

1) The example needs to be run as sudo. To run a python program as sudo within a virtual environment, you need to specify the python executable in the virtualenv folder:

sudo venv/bin/python xbox_controller.py --user USER --password PASSWORD ROBOT_IP

2) After the controller is connected, the example prints a status window:

E-Stop	Control	Motors On	Mode

3) Next, press the key combination Left Button + Right Button + B to turn E-Stop on:

E-Stop	Control	Motors On	Mode
X

4) Next, press the Guide button to acquire a lease with this Spot:

E-Stop	Control	Motors On	Mode
X       X

5) Next, press the Start button to turn the motors on:

E-Stop	Control	Motors On	Mode
X       X       X

6) Spot is now ready to be controlled.

7) To E-Stop Spot at any time, press the E-Stop button combination (LB + RB + B)

8) To exit and power off Spot, press the Back button.