This guide is intended for the technical/IT team of customers who need to wirelessly connect their robot to a 2.4 Ghz WiFi network with Enterprise Authentication or Certificates.
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This guide is not intended for Ethernet connections or WiFi networks with WPA or WPA2 Personal networks with a pre-shared key. For these configurations, see our RoboKind Quick Network Setup Guide. |
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Networking Requirements
Advanced Requirements:
See How-to Connect your Robot to 5GHz WiFi for additional instructions if only 5Ghz WiFi is available.
| Unsupported Configurations:
Certain earlier versions of RoboKind applications required that robots & tablets be on the same network and that that port isolation be disabled to allow robots & iPad’s to directly communicate directly with each other, however this requirement does not apply to our RoboKind Companion 3 application. |
Thumb Drive based WiFi setup without Certificates
Plug in and turn on the robot, which will be needed later in the instructions.
Insert your empty, virus scanned thumb drive into the computer being used to configure the thumb drive, and make note of the drive letter.
WPA or WPA2 Personal
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Connection with a WiFi password |
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The following instructions are intended for configuring significant numbers of robots. If you have fewer than 5 robots, we recommend using the RoboKind Quick Network Setup Guide |
Open this wifi.conf file in a text editor (such as notepad)
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2. Replace the YOUR_NETWORK_SSID and YOUR_WIFI_PASSWORD fields with the proper values (Case sensitive).
WPA or WPA2 Enterprise with Username/Password
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Connection with a network account for the robot |
Contact your IT help desk to create a network account with minimally necessary security permissions for the robot to use when authenticating to the network.
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2. Open this file in a text editor, and replace the YOUR_NETWORK_SSID, ROBOT'S NETWORK USERNAME, and ROBOT'S NETWORK PASSWORD fields.
3. Save the modified file in the root directory of a USB thumb drive that is blank and formatted as FAT32.
If you encounter an error while saving the files, ensure that there is no write protection enabled on the thumb drives, and that your organization policies do not prevent the use of USB thumb drives.
4. Check to make sure that the file saved on the thumb drive is named wifi.conf. If the text editor adds an extension such as .TXT, it will not work.
5. Eject the USB thumb drive, but do not yet insert it into the robot.
6. Verify that the robot is powered on, within range of the desired 2.4Ghz WiFi network, and on the MAIN MENU screen.
7. Plug the USB drive into the robot’s rear panel.
8. Upon successful configuration, the robot will speak it’s IP Address.
9. From the robot, run a network test. How-To Test Robot Network Connectivity
10. If the setup has not been successful, then please connect the robot to an alternate network from which RoboKind can connect to the robot (for example a hot spot, or an Ethernet network with UDP port 1194 open to cypress.robokind.us (72.249.182.162), and notify support.robokind.com using the “contact us” link so that we can connect to the robot and verify the configuration.
Thumb Drive WiFi Setup with Certificates
Contact your IT help desk to create a network account with minimum necessary security permissions for the robot to use when authenticating to the network. See the “advanced requirements” section at the top of this document for the specific firewall routes that are required.
Generate the certificates required for step 3 for the given network account. Supported certificate formats are PEM (recommended) or DER. PKCS#12/.cer files are not supported.
Save the following files to your blank, virus scanned thumb drive.
The CA_CERT file (if available)
The CLIENT_CERT file
The PRIVATE_KEY file. (If this does not come in a file, you can create a file named PRIVATE_KEY.key, and save the text into the file).
Plug in and turn on the robot, which will be needed later in the instructions.
Extract the contents of the following .ZIP file to a temporary directory on your computer. (DO NOT SAVE TO YOUR THUMB DRIVE YET).
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6. Copy the nm_conf and autorun-r25 files to the root directory of your thumb drive.
7. Edit the nm_conf file on the thumb drive with a text editor such as notepad.
8. Make the following edits in the nm_conf file:
Identity= line: Replace ROBOT'S_NETWORK_USERNAME with the account which the robot will be authenticating.
We recommend that this not contain any spaces or special characters, and this must be the same account from which the certificates have been created.
ca-cert= line: Replace EXAMPLE_CA_CERT with the exact file name and extension of the CA Cert file saved on the thumb drive. This will usually have a .pem extension, which should be included.
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If you do not have a CA certificate, delete the ca-cert= line from the nm_conf file. |
client-cert= line: Replace EXAMPLE_CLIENT_CERT with the exact file name and extension of the client cert file saved on the thumb drive. This will usually have a .pem extension, which should be included.
private-key= line: Replace EXAMPLE_PRIVATE_KEY with the exact file name and extension of the private key file saved on the thumb drive. This will usually have a .key extension, which should be included.
private-key-password= line: Replace PRIVATE_KEY'S_PASSWORD with the exact file name and extension of the private key file saved on the thumb drive.
9. Insert your empty, virus scanned thumb drive into the computer being used to configure the thumb drive, and make note of the drive letter. Save the above created files to the drive such that there are 4 or 5 files total, including the personalized file named nm_conf, the autorun-r25 file (both without extensions), and the applicable certificate files.
10. Verify that the robot is powered on, within range of the desired 2.4Ghz WiFi network, and on the MAIN MENU screen or on the initial WiFi setup screen.
11. Plug the USB drive into the robot’s rear panel. If the USB drive is formatted as FAT32 and the script is working, the robot should announce it’s progress in starting and completing the configuration. If not, please skip to step 14 as the issue may not be related to the network configuration.
12. On the robot’s chest screen, choose:
Utilities
Network
Network Info
WiFi (button is on the 2nd row up)
make sure the 2nd line reads “Name:” and the SSID of the desired network. If this fails, reboot the robot and check again.
13. From the robot, run a network test. How-To Test Robot Network Connectivity
14. If the setup has not been successful, then please connect the robot to an alternate network from which RoboKind can connect to the robot (for example a hot spot, or an Ethernet network with UDP port 1194 open to cypress.robokind.us (72.249.182.162), and notify support.robokind.com using the “contact us” link so that we can connect to the robot and verify the configuration.