AD-R1M Quick Start Guide

This guide will help you power on, connect to, and operate the AD-R1M robot for the first time.

Important

First-Time Setup Required?

All robots built by Analog Devices come with their SD cards already prepared with the robot software, and you don’t need to flash anything. If you are building an AD-R1M yourself or want to reinitialize your robot software from scratch, complete these steps first:

SD Card Setup - Flash the ADI Kuiper Linux image to your SD card
First Boot Configuration - Configure hostname, WiFi, firmware, and motor tuning

See the AD-R1M Software Guide for complete installation instructions.

Power On

Press the gray latching button to engage the battery cut-off relay
Press and hold the gray momentary button (~1s) to start the robot electronics
Wait for the LED ring to turn solid green (~60 seconds)

Remote Control

RC Interface — Radio controller showing buttons, switches, and joysticks

Step 1: Verify Connection

Press [RTN] to return to the home screen. Look for the wireless “bars” icon indicating connection.

RC Connection Status — Radio connection status: disconnected (left) vs connected (right)

Step 2: Check Telemetry

Press [TELE] to view the telemetry screen. RxBt should display the battery voltage (e.g., “12.3V”).

Warning

Do not let battery voltage drop below 9V during operation.

Step 3: Arm the Robot

Move the arm switch (SA) to the “ARMED” (down) position. The robot should shake slightly to confirm.

Killswitch Position — Arm switch positions: OFF (up) = safe, ARMED (down) = active

Step 4: Drive

Use the right control gimbal:

Forward/Back: Stick up/down
Turn: Stick left/right
Stop: Release to center

For initial RC setup and binding the receiver, see First Boot Configuration.

For RC troubleshooting, see Remote Control Issues.

Connect to the robot using SSH

Connecting to the robot using SSH allows you to:

Configure a WiFi connection
Reconfigure ROS 2 runtime
Debug and troubleshoot robot software
Deploy your own code to the robot

If you haven’t yet configured WiFi, you must connect to the AD-R1M through the wired Ethernet port in the back. Once you configure WiFi, you may disconnect the Ethernet cable, to let your robot roam free.

Note

In the following sections, ad-r1m-123 represents the hostname of your robot and the 123 should be replaced with your actual number, e.g. ad-r1m-6, ad-r1m-42, …

Run:

~$

ssh analog@ad-r1m-123.local

Username: analog

Password: analog

Connect the robot to your WiFi network

Connect to the AD-R1M using SSH
Run sudo nmtui (password analog)
Enter the “Activate a connection” menu
Select your WiFi network from the list
Enter the WiFi password
Verify the connection – does your network have an * (asterisk) next to it?
Press Escape 3 times to exit nmtui

Prepare software on your computer

The robot stack runs standalone and doesn’t depend on any external software. You may install extra software on your computer for:

Remotely visualizing the robot’s perceived environment
Sending commands to the autonomous navigation function
Running ROS 2 code that communicates with the robot

Our recommended mechanism for this is to use Pixi. First install Pixi by following their installation guide, i.e.:

Linux & macOS
In a terminal window, run:
~$
curl -fsSL https://pixi.sh/install.sh | sh
Close and reopen the terminal window, or run source ~/.bashrc (or the rc of your shell of choice).
Windows
In a PowerShell window, run:
~$
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -c "irm -useb https://pixi.sh/install.ps1 | iex"
Close and reopen the PowerShell window.

Then create a Pixi workspace:

~$

mkdir pixiws && cd pixiws

~/pixiws$

pixi init -c robostack-humble -c conda-forge

~/pixiws$

pixi add ros-humble-desktop ros-humble-rmw-zenoh-cpp ros-humble-teleop-twist-keyboard

Configure the connection to your robot:

~/pixiws$

pixi workspace activation env set RMW_IMPLEMENTATION="rmw_zenoh_cpp"

~/pixiws$

pixi workspace activation env set ZENOH_CONFIG_OVERRIDE="connect/endpoints=['tcp/ad-r1m-123.local:7447'];mode='client'"

Note

Replace ad-r1m-123 with your robot’s hostname. You may run these commands again to switch robots.

Visualize the robot using Rviz

Rviz is the standard ROS tool for listening to live data from a robot and displaying it in a 3D environment.

In the AD-R1M repository folder, run:

~/pixiws$

pixi run rviz2

Out of the box, rviz doesn’t display much:

You may build visualizations by adding display items using the “Add” button in the bottom left. Alternatively, you can download a ready made rviz configuration file: ad_r1m_description/rviz/main.rviz and open it from the Rviz File > Open Config menu, which should look something like this:

RViz with an example configuration showing the robot 3D model and its camera views

Note that the ToF preview will always be upside down because of the sensor’s position. The robot model encodes this orientation information, so all ROS nodes that use ToF data know to “untwist” it – this is just a visualization quirk.

Control the robot using a keyboard

In development, it is often useful to quickly teleoperate the robot without using the physical remote control. The best practice is to use two terminals: one SSH’d into the robot for teleop, and one on your host for visualization.

Robot Terminal (SSH)

SSH into the robot and run the keyboard teleop:

~$

ssh analog@ad-r1m-123.local

~$

ad-r1m mkconfig teleop

~$

cd teleop

~/teleop$

docker compose --env-file ad-r1m.env run --rm teleop_keyboard

The teleop includes built-in killswitch control:

Moving around:
   u    i    o
   j    k    l
   m    ,    .

i/,   : forward/backward
j/l   : turn left/right
u/o/m/. : combined movements

anything else : stop

q/z : increase/decrease max speeds by 10%
w/x : increase/decrease only linear speed by 10%
e/c : increase/decrease only angular speed by 10%

p/r : activate/reset killswitch

CTRL-C to quit

Note

Press r to reset the killswitch and enable the motors. You should hear a sound from the motor drives and see a brief shaky movement. Press p to activate the killswitch and stop the motors.

Host Terminal (Pixi)

On your host computer, use the Pixi workspace created in Prepare software on your computer.

First, deactivate the killswitch and initialize the motors:

~$

cd pixiws

~/pixiws$

pixi run ros2 topic pub --once /killswitch std_msgs/msg/Bool "{data: false}"

~/pixiws$

pixi run ros2 service call /drive_left/init std_srvs/srv/Trigger

~/pixiws$

pixi run ros2 service call /drive_right/init std_srvs/srv/Trigger

Note

You should hear a sound from the motor drives and see a brief shaky movement when the motors initialize. This confirms the motors are ready. If not, re-run the service call commands.

Then run the keyboard teleop:

~/pixiws$

pixi run ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard --ros-args --remap cmd_vel:=cmd_vel_keyboard

To stop the motors (activate killswitch):

~/pixiws$

pixi run ros2 topic pub --once /killswitch std_msgs/msg/Bool "{data: true}"

Next Steps

Now that your robot is operational, explore these capabilities:

Mapping – Create maps of your environment