21. Using OpenClaw to Control PiCrawler

What is OpenClaw?

Think of it as an upgraded version of ChatGPT. While traditional chatbots can only talk (generate text), OpenClaw can take action. It understands your natural language instructions and can actually perform operations on your computer, such as running commands, managing files, and calling various tools.

Here are some fantastic application scenarios:

  • Personal All-around Assistant: Let it help you manage your schedule, set reminders, and track tasks. You just need to tell it in a chat app (like Telegram, WhatsApp), and it will remember and execute.

  • Automation “Glue”: It can act as a binder for your various services. For example, you can have it monitor a website for price changes. Once a price drop is detected, it can automatically trigger an n8n automation workflow to send you an email notification.

  • Dedicated Development Assistant: Have it help you manage servers, run scripts, and check logs. You can simply say, “Check the system load for me,” and it can SSH into your server, execute the command, and return the results.

  • Hardware “Playmate”: This is a very interesting use case. You can have OpenClaw control hardware connected to a Raspberry Pi. For example, a developer used it to control a robotic vacuum cleaner with a mechanical arm, or even had it help analyze racing simulator data and display it on an LED screen. The official Raspberry Pi team even used it to build an automatic photo booth for a wedding, just through conversation, without writing a single line of code!

Important

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W has only 512MB of RAM, while OpenClaw requires a minimum of 1GB. Therefore, it cannot run properly. A Raspberry Pi 4/5 or higher is recommended.

Quick Start OpenClaw

If you want to experience the power of OpenClaw as quickly as possible, use this method. It will automatically install and launch an interactive setup wizard.

  1. Open the terminal on your Raspberry Pi and run the following command directly. This command downloads the installation script from the official website and executes it:

    curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

    Note

    Because new versions are updated rapidly, it’s normal if your installation steps differ slightly.

  2. The script will automatically download and install OpenClaw.

    _images/install_open_claw.png

  3. You will then see a security prompt asking if you trust OpenClaw. Once you are sure it is safe and reliable, use the arrow keys to navigate to “Yes” and press Enter.

    _images/security_open_claw.png

  4. Select Quick Start, and then press Enter.

    _images/quickstart_open_claw.png

  5. Select your Model, and then press Enter. Here we use OpenAI as an example.

    _images/model_provider_open_claw.png

  6. Select OpenAI API Key.

    _images/api_key_open_claw.png

  7. Paste API key now.

    _images/paste_api_key_open_claw.png

  1. Go to OpenAI Platform and log in. On the API keys page, click Create new secret key.

    _images/llm_openai_create1.png

  2. Fill in the details (Owner, Name, Project, and permissions if needed), then click Create secret key.

    _images/llm_openai_create_confirm1.png

  3. Once the key is created, copy it right away — you won’t be able to see it again. If you lose it, you’ll need to generate a new one.

    _images/llm_openai_copy1.png

  4. Paste the key into the OpenClaw configuration.

    _images/paste_api_key_enter_open_claw.png

  5. Select the Model you want to use. In this example, we will use Keep current.

    _images/model_config_open_claw.png

  6. Next is the channel selection. Channels refer to the communication services supported by OpenClaw, such as Telegram, WhatsApp, Discord, and more. Use the down arrow key to select the “Skip for now” option, then press Enter.

    _images/channel_open_claw.png

  7. Next, you will be prompted to configure skills immediately. Select “Yes” and press Enter.

    _images/config_skill_open_claw.png

  8. Install the skills you need. In the following example, we select the “Skip for now” option (press the spacebar to select), then press Enter.

    _images/install_skill_open_claw.png

  9. Next are Hooks; we will check “command-logger” and “session-memory”.

    _images/hooks2_open_claw.png

  10. The installation is now complete. You can start OpenClaw by Selecting “Hatch in TUI” and pressing Enter.

_images/hatch_open_claw.png

Note

You can start OpenClaw by entering the following command:

openclaw tui

And You can press ctrl+c twice to exit the tui interface.

Making OpenClaw Operate the PiCrawler

What is PiCrawler Skill?

PiCrawler Skill is an extension for OpenClaw that allows you to control your SunFounder PiCrawler robot spider through natural language. Instead of writing Python scripts or remembering coordinate values, you can simply tell OpenClaw what you want PiCrawler to do — like “stand up”, “walk forward three steps”, or “check if there’s an obstacle ahead” — and OpenClaw will execute the appropriate Python code automatically.

Here are some things you can do with PiCrawler Skill:

  • Basic Movements: Walk forward, backward, turn left/right, make small-angle turns

  • Poses: Stand up, sit down

  • Expressive Actions: Wave a front leg, dance, do push-ups, look in different directions

  • Sensors: Read the ultrasonic distance sensor to detect obstacles

  • Sound: Play sound effects and music through the robot’s speaker

  • Camera Vision: Take photos, detect faces, track colors, recognize QR codes and gestures

Prerequisites

Before you can use PiCrawler Skill with OpenClaw, make sure you have:

  1. PiCrawler properly assembled and connected to your Raspberry Pi

  2. OpenClaw installed and running

  3. The following Python libraries installed:

    • picrawler

    • robot_hat

    • vilib

You can verify the installation by running:

python3 -c "import picrawler"

If this command runs without errors, you’re ready to proceed.

Installing PiCrawler Skill

Follow these steps to install the PiCrawler Skill for OpenClaw:

  1. Copy the PiCrawler skill files to the OpenClaw skills directory:

    cp -r ~/picrawler/picrawler-control ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/

  2. Verify the installation by checking the skill files:

    ls ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/

    You should see SKILL.md, install.sh, scripts/, and references/ in the output.

The skill’s SKILL.md file contains all the instructions OpenClaw needs — safety rules, code templates for each capability, and a mapping from natural language requests to Python code. OpenClaw reads this file and uses it to decide what code to execute on your PiCrawler.

Testing PiCrawler Skill from the CLI

Before using the skill with OpenClaw, you may want to test basic functionality directly from the terminal using the included CLI tool.

Check ultrasonic distance:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py sensor distance

Make PiCrawler sit:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py pose sit --speed 40

Make PiCrawler stand:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py pose stand --speed 40

Walk forward:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py move forward --steps 2 --speed 60

Turn left:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py move "turn left" --steps 1 --speed 60

Play a sound effect:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py sound play /home/pi/picrawler/examples/sounds/talk1.wav --volume 80

Run servo calibration:

python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py calibrate

Using PiCrawler Skill in OpenClaw

Once you’ve verified that PiCrawler Skill works from the command line, you can start using it within OpenClaw.

  1. Launch OpenClaw TUI:

    openclaw tui

  2. Send natural language commands to control PiCrawler. Here are some examples:

    • “Stand up”

    • “Sit down”

    • “Walk forward three steps”

    • “Turn left”

    • “Do a dance”

    • “Do some push-ups”

    • “Wave your front leg”

    • “Look to the left”

    • “Check if there’s something ahead”

    • “Take a photo”

    • “Detect faces / look at me”

    • “Find the color red”

  3. OpenClaw will automatically translate your request into the appropriate Python code and execute it on PiCrawler. For movement commands, the skill always ensures the robot stands first and sits down after completing the action.

Available Actions and Commands

Here is the complete list of capabilities supported by PiCrawler Skill:

Movements (pc.py move)

Action

Description

forward

Walk forward

backward

Walk backward

turn left

Pivot left in place

turn right

Pivot right in place

turn left angle

Small-angle turn left

turn right angle

Small-angle turn right

Poses (pc.py pose)

Pose

Description

stand

Stand up from sitting position

sit

Sit down from standing position

Additional Actions (via natural language / exec)

Action

Description

dance

Perform a dancing motion

push_up

Do push-up motions

wave

Wave a front leg

look_left

Turn body to look left

look_right

Turn body to look right

look_up

Tilt body to look up

look_down

Tilt body to look down

Sensors

Command

Description

sensor distance

Read ultrasonic distance sensor (returns cm)

Sound (pc.py sound)

Command

Description

sound play <file>

Play a sound effect file

sound music <file>

Play background music

sound volume <0-100>

Set speaker volume

sound stop

Stop playback

Camera & Vision (via natural language / exec)

Capability

Description

Take photo

Capture and save a photo to ~/Pictures/

Face detection

Detect human faces and report position

Color detection

Locate objects by color (red, blue, green, etc.)

Gesture recognition

Recognize rock/paper/scissor gestures

Traffic sign detection

Recognize stop/left/right/forward signs

QR code scanning

Read QR code data and position

Troubleshooting

OpenClaw Issues

  1. During installation, I get the error Error: systemctl is-enabled unavailable: Command failed: systemctl --user is-enabled openclaw-gateway.service. What should I do?

    You can ignore this for now, but you might encounter issues in the next steps. Please refer to them one by one at that time.

  1. When I run openclaw tui, I get the error -bash: openclaw: command not found. What should I do?

    Execute the following command:

    echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.npm-global/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

    You should now be able to start the tui interface with openclaw tui.

  1. In openclaw tui, I encounter not connected to gateway — message not sent or the message gateway disconnected: closed.

    This is because your OpenClaw Gateway service is not started. Open another terminal and execute the following command to start the OpenClaw Gateway:

    openclaw gateway

    Then restart openclaw tui, and you can use it directly.

  1. I want to set the OpenClaw Gateway service to run in the background / start automatically on boot. How do I do that?

    Normally, your OpenClaw Gateway service should start automatically on boot. If it doesn’t, you can manually start it with the following command.

    1. Create the ~/.config/systemd/user directory:

    mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user

    1. Create the openclaw-gateway.service file:

    cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/openclaw-gateway.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=OpenClaw Gateway
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=$HOME/.npm-global/bin/openclaw gateway run
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=10
Environment="PATH=$HOME/.npm-global/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin"
Environment="NODE_ENV=production"

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF

    1. Then reload the systemd configuration:

    systemctl --user daemon-reload

    1. Start the service:

    systemctl --user start openclaw-gateway

    At this point, restart openclaw tui, and you can use it directly.

    1. Enable it to start on boot:

    systemctl --user enable openclaw-gateway

  1. My OpenClaw can not operate the system, what should I do?

    A newly installed OpenClaw may not have permission to operate your Raspberry Pi system by default; it can only chat. We need to manually configure the permissions.

    1. Open the OpenClaw configuration file:

    nano ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

    1. Find the tools option and change the profile and exec as shown.

    "tools": {
    "profile": "coding",
    "exec": {
        "secrity": "full"
    }
},

    1. Save and exit.

    2. Enter the following command in the terminal to restart the OpenClaw Gateway:

    openclaw gateway restart

    Now, OpenClaw should have read and write permissions and be able to operate your Raspberry Pi system.

PiCrawler Issues

  1. PiCrawler doesn’t respond to commands. What should I do?

    First, verify that PiCrawler is properly connected and powered on. Then test basic functionality:

    python3 ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/scripts/pc.py pose sit --speed 40

    If this fails, ensure the required Python libraries are installed:

    python3 -c "import picrawler; import robot_hat; import vilib"

  1. The import picrawler test fails.

    This means the PiCrawler Python library is not properly installed. Please refer to the PiCrawler official installation guide to install the necessary libraries. You can also run the included install script:

    bash ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/picrawler-control/install.sh

  1. OpenClaw doesn’t recognize the PiCrawler skill.

    Remind OpenClaw to sync the skills by saying in the TUI: “Please rsync my skills” or restart OpenClaw gateway:

    openclaw gateway restart

  1. PiCrawler movements seem unstable or jerky.

    This is usually caused by executing actions at too high a speed or without allowing the previous action to complete. The skill enforces safety rules (stand before move, sit after move) and recommends speed ranges. Try reducing the speed parameter (e.g., use --speed 40), or add short delays between consecutive commands.