Replacing the Radio Modem.
 

Face it... the current Innovation FIRST Radio Modem sucks. It's based on old technology, is proprietary, expensive, draws alot of power, and can easily interfere with even a cordless phone.

We need something new and revolutionary. (That IS what FIRST is about, right?) We need Bluetooth wireless transcievers. There are plenty of advantages to this:

• It's cheap. A bluetooth chipset costs around $10 right now, and it's slowly going down.
• No interference. Even though Bluetooth uses the cluttered 2.4 ghz ISM (Industrial/Scientific/Medical) band, it uses DSSS frequency-hopping (1.6 thousand times per second) to avoid interfering with other bluetooth and ISM devices. Think about it, being able to use the radio in the pits without interfering with another robot's operation. A targeted frequency scrambler (to disable a specific bot) wouldn't work because bluetooth doesn't use discreet channels in the ISM band.
• Low power. A bluetooth chipset transmitting at short range (10 m) draws in the hundreds of milliwatts range, and the range can be up to 100 m.
• Bluetooth is a serial interface. You could use the same bluetooth chipset that you use to control the robot to reprogram it. You could get a wireless data readout about all the variables and PWM states on the RC without being tethered to it.
• Bluetooth chipsets are small. You could easily build one into the OI itsself, and wouldn't need an external radio modem.

That's all I can think of right now...

WEll the only way we will get a new modem is if Inovvation First makes it casue they are a major sponsor

I'd bet we probably won't see a new radio system anytime soon. Maybe if IFI revamps the whole controller system, they might go to a new radio, but I doubt it. Bluetooth would be nice, but it's not perfect.

i like the idea of a bluetooth radio, but off the shelf bluetooth wouldn't work. they'd be worried about people with laptops taking over robots...

I wonder why I have never really heard of battlebots going crazy if this is true.

Yeah...you'd figure if it's good enough for BattleBots, it's good enough for us...

Well its not really that but with the number of ifi controllers used today in battlebots it would be quite amazing that a robot did not go out of control while testing it.

Innovation FIRST works great!
 

Our team has used the Innovation FIRST system since it originally came out. I can honestly say that we have never had a single control system problem that wasn't caused by our own fault. That includes the operator interface, the robot controller, the speed controllers, and the spikes.

The Isaac controller is the best on the market and I'd be impressed if anyone could find a more reliable and versatile system. Robotics is one of the most strenuous applications for remote control and I believe this system has proven its usefulness, for both FIRST and BattleBots.

Good luck finding a better system, but you'll be hard pressed to find something with the range of 900Mhz without.

-Jason

At the regionals the realtime scoreing was done on Bluetooth equiped palms(some other brand I forget). At LA there were such problems that they asked people to stop using thier Bluetooth devices.

Problems:
802.11b and Bluetooth do not get along.
Bluetooth is only specified for 9meters.

Bluetooth Specifications Here

Wetzel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Better is the enemy of good enough, when facing a deadline.

There's a palm Bluetooth access point that has a range of 100 m, I assume it does this by applying more power to the transciever. ::shrug::

In my experience, WiFi and Bluetooth have never had a significant problem with eachother. We have a WiFi network at my house, and I sync with my Bluetooth cell phone nearly every day.

You can't do this. Just like you can't use your laptop to sync with someone else's phone without their consent. You have to enter an identical passcode on both sides for bluetooth to pair.

You'd figure that if battlebots was using it, we'd want something better ;)