Developers Guide

The classes in ASPyRobot are intended to be subclassed to add application specific functionality. In the RobotServer subclass you can define operation functions. These can be initiated from clients using the RobotClient.run_operation() method.

Robot operations should be decorated with server.foreground_operation or server.background_operation depending on whether the operation blocks other robot operations or not. For example, any operation that will drive the robot is a foreground_operation but reading information from the robot can be run in the background.

For example:

from aspyrobot import RobotServer, RobotClient
from aspyrobot.server import foreground_operation
from aspyrobot.exceptions import RobotError

class SAMRobotServer(RobotServer):
    @foreground_operation
    def mount_sample(self, handle, sample):
        if self.robot.motors_on.value != 1:
            raise RobotError('Motors must be on')
        self.robot.run_task('MountSample', sample)

Start the server as normal:

>>> from aspyrobot import Robot
>>> server = SAMRobotServer(Robot('SR08ID01ROB01:'))
>>> server.setup()

Then to execute the operation:

>>> robot = RobotClient()
>>> robot.setup()
>>> robot.run_operation('mount_sample', 'l A 1')