Pioneer 2TM User Manual

Pioneer is a family of mobile robots, 

both two-wheel and four-wheel drive, 
including the Pioneer 1 and Pioneer AT, 

Pioneer 2™ -DX, -DXe, -DXf, -CE, -AT, the 
Pioneer 2™-DX8/Dx8 Plus and -AT8/AT8 

Plus, and the newest Pioneer 3-DX and -

AT mobile robots.   These small, research 
and development platforms share a 

common architecture and foundation 

software with all other ActivMedia 
robots including AmigoBot™, People-

Bot™ V1, Performance PeopleBot™, 

and PowerBot™ mobile robots.  All 
employ a common client-server 

robotics control architecture. 

ActivMedia robots set the standards for intelligent mobile platforms by containing all of 
the basic components for sensing and navigation in a real-world environment.  They 

have become reference platforms in a wide variety of research projects, including 

several US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded studies. 

Every ActivMedia robot comes complete with a sturdy aluminum body, balanced drive 

system (two-wheel differential with caster or four-wheel skid-steer), reversible DC motors, 

motor-control and drive electronics, high-resolution motion encoders, and long-life, hot-
swappable battery power, all managed by an onboard microcontroller and mobile-

robot server software. 

Besides the open-systems ActivMedia Robotics Operating System (AROS) software 
onboard the robot controller, every ActivMedia robot also comes with a host of 

advanced robot-control client software applications and applications-development 

environments.  Software development includes our own foundation ActivMedia Robotics 
Interface for Applications (ARIA), released under the GNU Public License, and complete 

with  fully  documented  C++,  Java,  and  Python  libraries  and  source  code.    SRI 

International’s Saphira robotics development system  with  simulator  and  GUI,  as  well  as 
support for advanced localization and gradient-based navigation comes bundled, too.  

Several third-party robotics applications development environments also have emerged 
from the research community for ActivMedia robots, including Ayllu from Brandeis 

University, Pyro from Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges, Player from the University of 

Southern California, and Carmen from Carnegie-Mellon University. 

Every ActivMedia robot also comes with a plethora of expansion options, including built-

in hardware support for sonar and bump sensors and lift/gripper effectors, as well as 

serial-port and server software support for a number of sensors, effectors, and control 
accessories, like an onboard PC system, automated docking/recharging system, laser 

range-finder, 5-DOF arm, robotic pan-tilt cameras, and much, much more. 

The original Pioneer 1 mobile robot had a microcontroller based on the Motorola 68HC11 
microprocessor and powered by Pioneer Server Operating System (PSOS) software.  The 

first generation of Pioneer 2 and PeopleBot robots use a Siemens C166-based 

microcontroller and Pioneer 2 Operating System (P2OS) software.  Now, all new 

 

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