Introduction
Welcome to the RWTH - Mindstorms NXT Toolbox for MATLAB. This toolbox is developed to control LEGO® Mindstorms NXT robots with MATLAB via a USB and a wireless Bluetooth connection and provides MATLAB functions to interact with a robot directly.
The open source LEGO® Mindstorms NXT Bluetooth Developer Kit containing the communication protocols to the intelligent NXT Brick are used and the main "LEGO® Mindstorms NXT Direct Commands" are integrated.
This remote control concept enables you to combine robot applications with complex mathematical operations and visualizations within MATLAB.
So take a second to image the unlimited possibilities to give your robot artifical intelligence using the manifold MATLAB features based on the provided communication from the RWTH - Mindstorms NXT Toolbox. Have a look at the toolbox commands and be bubbling over with creative ideas to improve your robot properties with MATLAB. Have fun!
Advantages of using the RWTH - Mindstorms NXT Toolbox
(compared to programming languages operating directly on the NXT brick)
- Huge increase in available CPU power and memory
- Virtually unlimited program size (compared to classic NXT programs)
- Control multiple robots from within one single program (only limited by the number of simultaneously installed Bluetooth adapters)
- Run remote MATLAB programs to observe sensors etc. while classic NXT programs are executing at the same time
- Use additional common hardware, e.g. webcams, joysticks, etc.
- Advanced debugging features are fully supported, i.e. breakpoints, step-by-step execution, on-the-fly variable inspection
- Enjoy the advantages of networking and internet in your robot applications
- Impressive and well-documented 2D- and 3D-visualization capabilities for data representation
- Use existing programs, toolboxes or libraries, e.g. neural networks, image processing, databases
- Easy-to-use MATLAB profiler to detect bottlenecks of your programs
- Use MATLAB's GUIDE® to easily design applications and forms using drag and drop
- The RWTH - Mindstorms NXT Toolbox is stable and was sucessfully tested by over 300 students using more than 75 NXT robots and 150 computers running various operating systems