Adept ACE RESTful API

This is a C# RESTful API for the Adept ACE environment. This API was developed specifically to control a ViperS650 robot, but could be easily extended to control other robots. The goal of this project was to create a web API that would provide easy access to command and move the robot arm via standard HTTP requests. The initial purpose was to enable programming via a LabView program, but extends to anything that can issue standard HTTP GET and POST requests (e.g., JavaScript, Python, etc.).

• Install Adept ACE 3.8.100
• Start Adept Ace in as a server (video guide)
  • Use server=ace@43434 as show in the video.
• Connect to the robot within a client only instance of Adept Ace by following the same steps for starting it as a server except that the string that is appeneded to the end is client not server=ace@43434.
  • If you are trying to test it out without a robot you can emulate one by checking Open in Emulation Mode and creating a workspace (which lets you select a robot to emulate) or load the one provided in this repo (ACE_Workspace.awp) which emulates a Viper 650.
• Download the latest release or build the project in Visual Studio, and run the application
• The application gui will pop-up and once you click START it will start listening on localhost:9001
• See the usage documentation for available API endpoints and how to use them
• Aside from being well-commented the code has live documentation available which enables testing of the API endpoints. To access it, simply start the api server and navigate to http://localhost:9001/api/docs/ on a browser of your choice.
  • To update the docs you’ll need to edit dcos.json and then run generate_docs.py with python. It requires you have the jinja2 package installed. To install it you can simply run pip install jinja2.

GUI

Testing

You can quickly test out API endpoints via the PowerShell by:

• Starting up the Adept ACE Server
• Starting up the Adept ACE Client
• Connecting to the controller and robot in the Adept ACE Client
• Starting the application
  • Select the controller and robot from the dropdown menus and then click LOAD CONTROLLER
  • Start the RESTful API by clicking START SERVER
• Sending commands to the API via POST requests to move the robot. PowerShell examples below.
  • The command below calls a CartesianMove on the robot, other endpoints may take different JSON payloads or none at all. Edit the X, Y, Z, Yaw, Pitch, and Roll with the desired values for the move to be executed.

     PS > Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing http://localhost:9001/api/move/cartesian -ContentType "application/json" -Method POST -Body "{ 'Accel': 100, 'Decel': 100, 'Speed': 10, 'StraightMotion': true, 'MotionEnd': 'Blend', 'SCurveProfile': 0, 'X': 0, 'Y': 0, 'Z': 0, 'Yaw': 0, 'Pitch': 0, 'Roll': 0}"
    

  • The command below calls a JointMove on the robot, other endpoints may take different JSON payloads or none at all. Edit the JointPosition array in the JSON payload with the desired joint positions of the robot after the move.

     PS > Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing http://localhost:9001/api/move/joints -ContentType "application/json" -Method POST -Body "{ 'Accel': 100, 'Decel': 100, 'Speed': 10, 'StraightMotion': true, 'MotionEnd': 'Blend', 'SCurveProfile': 0, 'JointPosition': [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0]}"
    

Resources

• Nancy - Light-weight web framework for C#
• Newtonsoft - Popular high-performance JSON framework for .NET
• Volkanpaksoy - Tutorial to get started developing with Nancy
• Material Design in XAML - Library to create responsive and clean GUI’s

Continuing Development

You will need to install some packages via the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio

PM> Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json

PM> Install-Package Nancy

PM> Install-Package Nancy.Hosting.Self

PM> Install-Package MaterialDesignThemes

Alternatively, you can enable the Package Restore function of NuGet within Visual Studio, and clean and build the project which should install the necessary packages automatically.

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