LSS Chess Robot

The LSS Chess Robot is a robotic arm that can play chess against you. This is a free and open source project that integrates aspects of robotics, computer vision, and of course chess.

Table of Contents

• Requirements
• Modules List
• Getting Started
• Install
• Run
• Authors
• License
• Resources

Requirements

Hardware

• Lynxmotion Smart Servo (LSS) 4 DoF Robotic Arm
• Raspberry Pi or Windows PC
• Display
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Camera (USB or Raspberry Pi Camera Module)
• Lighting
• Chess board and pieces
• Speaker or Headphones (Optional)

Software

• OpenCV
• Stockfish
• Python Chess
• FreeSimpleGUI

Modules List

• Vision Module
• Chess Logic
• Arm Control
• Interface

Getting Started

To start using this project, proceed to the standard clone procedure:

cd <some_directory>
git clone https://github.com/Robotics-Technology/Chess-Robot.git

Install

• On Windows PC

1. Create a virtual environment (recommended):

python -m venv env
cd env/Scripts
activate

1. Install requirements

pip install -r requirements.txt

• On Raspberry Pi

1. Create a virtual environment (recommended):

python3 -m venv env
source env/bin/activate

1. Install requirements

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

1. If you are using the Raspberry Camera Module

pip3 install "picamera[array]"

Note: To avoid incompatibilities use the versions established in the "requirements", for this it is recommended to use a virtual environment.

If you have issues with OpenCV on the Raspberry Pi try the following commands:

sudo apt-get install libatlas-base-dev
sudo apt-get install libjasper-dev
sudo apt-get install libqtgui4
sudo apt-get install libqt4-test
sudo apt-get install libhdf5-dev 
sudo apt-get install libhdf5-serial-dev
sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5
sudo apt-get install stockfish
sudo pip3 install opencv-python==4.5.5.64
sudo pip3 install opencv-contrib-python

Run

cd <project_directory>
python Interface.py

Chess Robot Interface

Gameplay Video

Authors

• Geraldine Barreto
• Eduardo Nunes

License

LSS Chess Robot is available under the GNU General Public License v3.0

Contributing

Anyone is very welcome to contribute. Below is a list of identified improvements.

To do

• Change the gripper aperture acording to the chess piece type
• Allow re-taking pictures in the case of board obstruction

Limitations

• The chessboard is limited by the reach of the arm and the squares need to be big enough so the arm gripper doesn’t stumble upon adjacent pieces.
• This project was specifically made to be used with LSS smart servo motors using the LSS serial communication protocol so if you want to use it for a different robotic arm you will need to change how the servos are controlled and change the inverse kinematics parameters to match your specific arm.

Resources

Every module of the project is explained in the tutorial series available here.

Read more about the LSS Robotic Arm in the wiki.

Purchase the LSS arm on RobotShop.

Official Lynxmotion Smart Servo (LSS) libraries for Python available here.

If you want more details about the LSS protocol, go here.

Have any questions? Ask them on the Robotshop Community.