[FRC Blog] New 2015 FRC controller from National Instruments

[Bryan Herbst]

Original post: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog-new-2015-controller-from-national-instruments#comment-948

NI will be releasing details about the 2015 FRC controller at their NI Week conference in August… but they’re excited about how well it’s all coming together. They even shared this photo of the bare PCB, hot off the press, with us. See anything interesting?



I’ll blog again soon.



Frank

I believe I spy PWM outputs on there. I'd love to see the death of the digital sidecar and the return of on-board I/O!

[Thad House]

The 3.3v and 5v jumper on the bottom left corner looks interesting. maybe both voltages will work for IO. on the top i see an ethernet port, a USB port, and also maybe an ISP header on the top right. ARM based maybe?? Also i'm liking the new size of the board.

[ehochstein]

I heard it is about the size of two digital sidecars put together and that it includes PWM outputs. So it combines the crio and the digital sidecar but you need an extension for pneumatics.

Edit: I've attached a smaller version of the image for reference.
15003

[DampRobot]

I think you're right about the PWM inputs, but that 2x16 (or so) set of holes looks like it might be for a ribbon cable attachment. Perhaps both onboard PWM and the option for a digital sidecar?

[Peter Johnson]

My guesses at connectors (referenced to photo location)

Top of picture (left to right):
- unknown 4-pin
- USB-B?
- 2x stacked USB-A
- Ethernet
- unknown 10-pin ribbon-style

Left of picture (top to bottom):
- unknown 4-pin
- unknown 3-pin
- 10x PWM: motor or digital

Bottom of picture (left to right):
- 3-pin: power input
- J1 (2 pin): robot signal light?
- 8x PWM: analog
- 2x unknown?

Right of picture (top to bottom):
- 10x PWM: motor or digital

Center of picture:
- Big ribbon cable (34 pin): digital sidecar expansion?

[Richard Wallace]

Scaling from the size of the 34 way DIL header pads near the middle, it appears this board will fit into an ~square plastic enclosure that is just under 7 inches on each side, with holes spaced 6 inches apart. It should also have a low profile. These are steps in the right direction.

[AdamHeard]

My guesses at connectors (referenced to photo location)

Top of picture (left to right):
- unknown 4-pin
- USB-B?
- 2x stacked USB-A
- Ethernet
- unknown 10-pin ribbon-style

Left of picture (top to bottom):
- unknown 4-pin
- unknown 3-pin
- 10x PWM: motor or digital

Bottom of picture (left to right):
- 3-pin: power input
- J1 (2 pin): robot signal light?
- 8x PWM: analog
- 2x unknown?

Right of picture (top to bottom):
- 10x PWM: motor or digital

Center of picture:
- Big ribbon cable (34 pin): digital sidecar expansion?

I hope we get more than 20 combined pwm out/digital in!

[Peter Johnson]

I hope we get more than 20 combined pwm out/digital in!

Based on other information I've seen posted about the new system, there will likely be a way to get more through some sort of expansion port like they're doing for pneumatics breakouts (via CAN bus). If the 34-pin header is compatible with the existing digital sidecar that's an even more straightforward expansion.

Speaking of, at least a couple of the connectors on this PCB should be for the CAN bus, but it's hard to tell which ones.

[ehochstein]

Based on other information I've seen posted about the new system, there will likely be a way to get more through some sort of expansion port like they're doing for pneumatics breakouts (via CAN bus).

Speaking of, at least a couple of the connectors on this PCB should be for the CAN bus, but it's hard to tell which ones.

I've also heard you will be able to run two controllers in master-slave mode to allow for additional ports. I believe their goal is to make this controller affordable for each team to buy one yearly (as it should be).

[Joe Ross]

Here's the things you should be trying to fit in: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1267723#post1267723

[mman1506]

I'm going to guess that the IDE style connector will got to a CAN "sidecar" like the CRE crosslink.
also the ethernet and the USB-B port look like right angle parts. hmmh....

[Kims Robot]

Is it bad that his comment made me look for the screenprinted FIRST logo somewhere on the board? Unfortunately it doesnt look like that is the "interesting" part. A little sizable, but looks like some good features :)

[Peter Johnson]

The center component looks like it's for a Xilinx FG400 package.. so maybe a Spartan-3 series FPGA? If so, processor is likely on the other side of the board.

[craigboez]

There definitely appears to be an IDE style connector in the middle of the board. What functionality could that provide that wouldn't be better suited for a CAN or similar digital connection? Seems like those big and bulky ribbon cables are relics of the past. Backwards compatibility?

[mman1506]

There definitely appears to be an IDE style connector in the middle of the board. What functionality could that provide that wouldn't be better suited for a CAN or similar digital connection? Seems like those big and bulky ribbon cables are relics of the past. Backwards compatibility?

I wonder if something locks into it without a cable like a expansion card.

[Whippet]

That PCB is green. Green is a combination of yellow and blue. Water is typically depicted as being blue. Clearly, this signifies a water game. :D

[Michael Hill]

Here's my opinion so far

[mman1506]

Here's my opinion so far

Didn't CTRE say they were making a external solenoid controller? I think they may be analog inputs.

[Michael Hill]

Ya, you could be right. The controller had to speak to the pneumatic controller somehow. Was that CAN-based? (I'm on my phone right now and can't look stuff up)

[mman1506]

Ya, you could be right. The controller had to speak to the pneumatic controller somehow. Was that CAN-based? (I'm on my phone right now and can't look stuff up)

yup http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg

[DonRotolo]

Here's my opinion so far
I think the Ethernet jack is to the right of the one you specified. I could be wrong (and frequently am...)

And USB! Hooray!

Not sure if there would be 20 PWMs and no DIO or Relay ports though.

Looks a lot like the footprint of the IFI controller, eh?

[joelg236]

Nobody has talked about form factor. Anyone have any idea about the size?

[Michael Hill]

I think the Ethernet jack is to the right of the one you specified. I could be wrong (and frequently am...)

And USB! Hooray!

Not sure if there would be 20 PWMs and no DIO or Relay ports though.

Looks a lot like the footprint of the IFI controller, eh?

I don't think IFI actually makes microcontrollers (?). Surely they don't have a fab or got an ASIC produced. I can see them rebadging something. I'm going to guess an ARM microprocessor solely because of it's ability to handle vxworks.

[Michael Hill]

I've tried to unskew it the best I can and based off of my assumption that the headers are 0.1" pin pitch, it looks like it will be about 5.5" x 5". The rectangles are my best attempt at making 1" long segments.

[mman1506]

I think the Ethernet jack is to the right of the one you specified. I could be wrong (and frequently am...)

And USB! Hooray!

Not sure if there would be 20 PWMs and no DIO or Relay ports though.

Looks a lot like the footprint of the IFI controller, eh?

I wonder if they will phase out spikes because of the new pneumatics board.

[Peter Johnson]

I'm going to guess that the IDE style connector will got to a CAN "sidecar" like the CRE crosslink.
also the ethernet and the USB-B port look like right angle parts. hmmh....

I think the big connector is simply the "custom electronics port". The Ethernet and USB ports look vertical style instead of right angle (if it was right angle, the Ethernet port would be facing the center of the board). Also, vertical style ports would be consistent with the cRIO style and make possible more compact electronic layouts (no ports off to the sides!).

[Peter Johnson]

I wonder if they will phase out spikes because of the new pneumatics board.

Nope, they still show "relay control" outputs in the new system (http://i.imgur.com/eA3Bvfu.jpg). Spikes can be useful for driving normal motors as well. Which makes me wonder where those outputs are on this board layout..

[ebmonon36]

4 pin headers are probably I2C and SPI

[Michael Hill]

Upon second look, those aren't potentiometers (the silk screen threw me off). I think they're push button switches. I should really learn to count.

[apples000]

28 i/o
That puts us at 7 analog, 7 relay, 7 dio, 7 pwm...
That's not enough for some teams, so I think that the large ide cable thing is a bunch more io.
Also, it the pin pitch is 0.1", the board is 5 inches deep, and either 5" or 5.25" wide so its pretty small...

[TheMadCADer]

I don't think IFI actually makes microcontrollers (?). Surely they don't have a fab or got an ASIC produced. I can see them rebadging something. I'm going to guess an ARM microprocessor solely because of it's ability to handle vxworks.

IFI used to provide the robot controller for FRC. Here's (http://i.imgur.com/H7UqeYI.jpg) the one from 2004.

[codes02]

IFI used to provide the robot controller for FRC. Here's (http://i.imgur.com/H7UqeYI.jpg) the one from 2004.

Right, but that is just a box with a circuit board (like this one) in it, and a bunch of chips attached to it. One of those chips is a microcontroller (on the old IFI board, it was a PIC, made by Microchip).

[Tom Line]

I think the Ethernet jack is to the right of the one you specified. I could be wrong (and frequently am...)

And USB! Hooray!

Not sure if there would be 20 PWMs and no DIO or Relay ports though.

Looks a lot like the footprint of the IFI controller, eh?

I'd be fairly disappointed if they incorporated the relays onto a PCB without adding external lights like the current digital sidecar. Those are both useful troubleshooting tools when trying to narrow down problems.

[Michael Hill]

I just want to know what that 132-ball csBGA is going to be for. I'm guessing a DSP. It's got a tiny tiny 0.5 mm pin pitch on those balls.

[Michael Hill]

The 96-ball footprint could be DDR2 or DDR3 memory. Not sure what else comes in that package.

[apples000]

If what somebody told me at the championship is true, the memory/cpu are in one device. Here's my post from another thread about what I heard. The guy wasn't a part of NI/FIRST so I don't know if what he said was speculation or the truth, but he seemed pretty knowledgeable about FRC electronics.

I don't know how true this is, but I've heard from somebody at CMP that the controller will have an ARM9 based SoC with similar amounts of RAM as the cRIO-II, and that there will be more I/O than the 3 pin connectors on the pcb they showed us, either on another part of the main controller, or on a separate breakout board, and that it will probably work with a modified version of WPILib.

I was told what the person thought would be the CPU's part number, but I'm not sure if I remember it properly. I think that it's mcimx25?

[Peter Johnson]

Joe Ross sent me a link to this new cRIO, looks to me like a likely basis for the new FRC controller (although we'll find out for sure tomorrow!).


Increased performance with a 667 MHz dual-core ARM® Cortex™--A9 processor and Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA
Powerful, open platform available through a Linux-based, real-time operating system
Extended operating temperature range of -40 to 70 °C
Flexible, existing C/C++ code that can be reused on the processor with support for the Eclipse Development Environment, or program in NI LabVIEW system design software


http://www.ni.com/crio-9068/

More info on NI's real time Linux: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/14626/

[cgmv123]

Post all discussion/reactions during/after announcement here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=118311

[FrankJ]

Joe Ross sent me a link to this new cRIO, looks to me like a likely basis for the new FRC controller (although we'll find out for sure tomorrow!).



Extended operating temperature range of -40 to 70 °C



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Oh Boy: A dry ice game!! Who needs regolith?