Switching Movement Control Between AR Drone And Ro

You’ve run into an ARC movement framework behavior: only one Movement Panel can be the active movement target for generic commands like Forward(), arrow keys, speech movement, joystick movement, etc.

Since the AR Parrot Drone Movement Panel is present, it is currently registered as the project’s movement handler, so generic movement commands will go to it instead of the Roomba.

What this means

• Forward(), Left(), Stop(), keyboard arrows, joystick movement, etc. do not target a specific Movement Panel directly.
• They are routed to the currently active Movement Panel.
• ARC does not provide a documented runtime command to switch the active Movement Panel between two different movement panels.

Recommended approach

For your demo, the cleanest solution is to bypass generic movement commands and call the specific Movement Panel with controlCommand() for each robot skill.

For example, instead of:

Forward()
Sleep(2000)
Stop()

use the panel-specific commands:

controlCommand("AR Drone", "TakeOff")
sleep(2000)
controlCommand("AR Drone", "Land")

and for the Roomba, use the Roomba panel’s specific control commands from its manual/settings. If the skill doesn’t expose movement commands through controlCommand(), then the panel is likely only designed to respond to ARC’s global movement routing.

Better architecture for your use case

If you need both robots in one project, I’d suggest one of these patterns:

Option 1: Use scripts for each robot directly

Create two helper scripts:

• Drone control script uses controlCommand() to send drone actions
• Roomba control script uses the Roomba skill’s commands or its own control method

Then decide in your logic which one runs.

Option 2: Use separate projects

If the goal is a live demo where one robot is airborne while the other drives, separate ARC projects can be easier:

• Project 1: AR Drone
• Project 2: Roomba

This avoids movement-routing conflicts entirely.

Option 3: Create a custom robot skill

If you truly need a single interface that can switch between movement targets at runtime, the best long-term solution is to create a custom robot skill that acts as a dispatcher.

You can start here:

• Create a robot skill Overview

About keyboard arrows

Keyboard arrows are also tied to the active Movement Panel, so there isn’t a separate per-skill keyboard focus setting for generic movement routing. Clicking into a panel’s keyboard box changes which control has keyboard focus for that UI element, but it does not change ARC’s global movement target in the way you’re hoping.

Practical workaround

For your state-based logic:

• If drone is flying use drone-specific commands
• If drone is landed use Roomba-specific commands

In other words, don’t rely on Forward()/Stop() when multiple movement panels are loaded.

If you want, I can help you with one of these next steps:

1. Write a JavaScript dispatcher script that switches between drone and Roomba control based on a state variable
2. Show you how to find the Roomba skill’s control commands in ARC
3. Help you build a custom movement router skill

If you’d like, I can also help convert your current logic from EZ-Script to JavaScript, which is the better fit in ARC.