Installation Guide

This document contains instructions to install following software/libraries on Ubuntu OS:

  • SimulIDE 0.4.14
  • Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers
  • CoppeliaSim 4.0.0

The installation of all software/libraries has been tested on Ubuntu 16.04 and 18.04. We recommend you to use one of these versions of Ubuntu OS. These software have to be installed ONLY ON 64-bit OS.

Refer the Video for installing Ubuntu on Virtual Machine

After installation, follow the steps in AVR Building Tool which will be used to compile and generate hex file from microcontroller code.

SimulIDE:

Description:

SimulIDE is a simple real time electronic circuit simulator, to learn and experiment with simple electronic circuits and microcontrollers, supporting PIC, AVR and Arduino. In this course, we will use it for simulating AVR projects.

Installation Steps:

  • Download SimulIDE Linux Appimage (version 0.4.14) from here
Figure: SimulIDE version selection

  • Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where this file was downloaded. Run the following command:

    chmod +x ./*.AppImage

This command will make an Appimage as executable.

  • Then double-click the AppImage in the file manager to open SimulIDE.
Figure: SimulIDE software launch

Eclipse:

Description: Eclipse is an integrated development environment used in computer programming. It contains a base workspace and an extensible plug-in system for customising the environment. We will be using Eclipse for writing our codes.

Installation Steps:

  • Download Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers for Ubuntu 64-bit OS from here (file size - 358MB). It will download as .tar.xz (compressed zip) file.

  • Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where this file was downloaded. Run the following command:

    tar -xf eclipse-cpp-2020-12-R-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz

    This command will decompress and extract the Eclipse software to the folder named eclipse-cpp-2020-12-R-linux-gtk-x86_64 in the same directory.

  • Now type the below commands in sequence to launch CoppeliaSim.

    cd eclipse
./eclipse

  • You will see the output as shown in following figures. Eclipse will open with the default scene loaded.

Figure: Extract Eclipse and launch it

Choose the desired location for workspace or continue with the default directory. On launching Eclipse, welcome screen will appear. After closing it you will see the following screen.

Figure: Eclipse software launch

CoppeliaSim:

Description:

The robot simulator CoppeliaSim is based on a distributed control architecture: each object/model can be individually controlled via an embedded script, a plugin, a ROS or BlueZero node, a remote API client, or a custom solution. This makes CoppeliaSim very versatile and ideal for multi-robot applications. Controllers can be written in C/C++, Python, Java, Lua, Matlab or Octave.

Installation Steps:

  • Download CoppeliaSim Edu 4.0.0 for Ubuntu 18.04 (64-bit OS) from here (file size - 152MB). It will download as .tar.xz (compressed zip) file.

Note: To download CoppeliaSim for Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit OS), click here (file size - 144MB).

  • Open Terminal and navigate to the directory where this file was downloaded. Run the following command:

    tar -xf CoppeliaSim_Edu_V4_0_0_Ubuntu18_04.tar.xz

    This command will decompress and extract the CoppeliaSim software to the folder named CoppeliaSim_Edu_V4_0_0_Ubuntu18_04 in the same directory.

  • Now type the below commands in sequence to launch CoppeliaSim.

    cd CoppeliaSim_Edu_V4_0_0_Ubuntu18_04
./coppeliaSim.sh

  • You will see the output as shown in following figures. CoppeliaSim will open with the default scene loaded.

    Figure: Extract CoppeliaSim and launch it

    Figure: CoppeliaSim software launch

AVR Building Tool:

Description:
This is user generated executable file. The file will be used to compile and build AVR codes and generate hex file.
Download avr_hex_file_generator executable file. Right-click on the hyperlinks and select Save Link As... option to download.
Set a $PATH of executable file in environment variable.

Follow the steps to set environment variable:
  • Open Terminal and navigate to home directory:
 cd $HOME
  • Run the following command:
  sudo apt-get install gcc-avr binutils-avr gdb-avr avr-libc avrdude
  • Open the .bashrc file in any editor:
 sudo nano .bashrc
  • Add the following line to the file at the end.
 export PATH="$HOME/<Path_to_executable_file>:$PATH"
  • Save the file and exit. Use the source command to force Linux to reload the .bashrc file which normally is read only when you log in each time.
 source .bashrc
  • Check that path is correctly added in the environment variable:
 echo $PATH