NEW: iRobot® Create® 3 Firmware Release G.3.1

[Rebecca-iRobot]

iRobot® Create® 3 Release G.3.1

The latest version of firmware for the Create 3 Educational Robot is hot off the press! This release contains improvements and bug fixes that will significantly improve your user experience, so we recommend updating as soon as you can by following the instructions below.

Installation Instructions

For update instructions, read below or watch this video.

1. Download the latest firmware package from edu.irobot.com/create3-latest-fw
2. Place robot on charging dock. Press and hold Buttons 1 & 2 to activate your robot’s access point. The Light Ring will show spinning cyan.
3. Open your computer’s Wi-Fi menu and connect to your robot listed as Create-[xxx]. Once connected, your robot’s light ring will glow solid cyan. NOTE: This will disconnect your computer from the internet.
4. Once your computer is connected to your robot’s access point, open a new browser window and visit the link 192.168.10.1. When you click the “Identify Robot” button, your robot will chime to confirm it is connected.
5. Navigate to the Update tab. Click “choose file” and select the firmware file downloaded in Step 1.
6. If you do not see this option, click the message “click Here to update from firmware file” to reveal more. Please note that we are utilizing this method because the button reading “Update” at the top of the page is not behaving as expected.
7. Next, click “Upload file and update.” The Light Ring will first spin blue and then spin white while updating. This may take several minutes.
8. The robot will disconnect itself from your computer and your computer should reconnect to your default Wi-Fi network. The Light Ring will glow solid white and the robot will play its ‘Happy Sound’ when update is complete.
   Optional: To confirm the update was successful, you can repeat Steps 2-4 OR navigate to your robot’s IP address to view the robot’s access point page. The firmware version listed at the top of the homepage should read G.3.1. Error message details can be found here to decode the light ring error message.

Release G.3.1 Details

This is the third production Create® 3 release.

For iRobot® Education Bluetooth¹ users, this is mostly a feature release.
For ROS 2² users, this is mostly a bugfix release.
See below for details.

This release is running ROS 2 Galactic with the following interface library versions:

• irobot_create_msgs - 1.2.4
• cyclonedds - 0.8.1
• Fast-DDS - 2.3.3

Release Overview

As with the last release, this one provides the robot's sensors and controls via topics, actions, and services; for more, see ROS 2 API.
There have been no changes to the ROS 2 API.

iRobot® Education Bluetooth protocol functionality has been further improved in this release, adding the seventh IR proximity sensor, and some commands related to docking and the docking sensor.
We have changed the robot's policy to disable all reflexes while in this mode (instead of just the bump reflex).
The robot should also respond more rapidly to disconnection.

Changelog (from G.2.2)

Core Robot

• Webserver

  • Added ROS namespace form validation (#71)

• User Interface

  • Reduce log spam from audio synthesizer and BLE advertisements
  • Add more useful logging from mobility board to nav board

• Motion Control

  • Fix bug relating to robot erroneously hitting backup limit when backup safety is disabled (#175)
  • Bugfixes around e-stop logic

• Connectivity

  • Robot will not restart application on DHCP renewals if the address stays the same
  • Add beta serial port forwarding feature

ROS 2

• Add system monitor node to report CPU and RAM usage to the log, as well as checking for multiple robots on the same topic.
• Implement ResetPose Service (#193)
• Proximity slowdown reflex no longer ignores safety_override setting

iRobot® Education Bluetooth protocol mode

• Fully implement protocol v1.5
• Robot disables all reflexes by default upon connection (#173)
• Fix serial number reporting
• Fix battery event rate
• Robot responds more quickly upon disconnection

Footnotes

1. The Bluetooth® word mark and logos are registered trademarks owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and any use of such marks by iRobot is under license. ↩

2. ROS 2 is governed by Open Robotics. ↩