Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

OK, after numerous calculations here is the data for 802.11 channel interference. Although it is true that only 1,6,and 11 have no crosstalk AT ALL does not mean that there are only three channels with low enough interference to work.

Cisco tested a 4 channel system using 1,4,8, and 11. In their test they found an only 1% interference overlap. With such little crossover they only found problems when using a large amount of the bandwidth at one time.

Using similar calculation I extrapolated the crosstalk with the system I described above (1,3,5,7,9,11). I found a crosstalk interference of only 5.47% outside 802.11 guidelines. Also at a distance of only 12.45 inches there is a drop in power enough to lessen the crosstalk below guidelines as well.

We also need to remember that the robots this year are only running at 19.2 Kbps. 802.11 provides up to 11000Kbps.

The guidelines for 802.11 require a 30dB drop for no interference.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

maybe we could even program the vision system go look around and scout.:cool: now thats what i call an automated robot.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

So far the only thing that I don't like is the fact that the PDBs, and everything is in one piece. Our electronics board was forced to fit into a very thin width and we probably couldn't have done it. Only a minor inconvenience because a few minor changes could've made work. The USB Joysticks will be good for us along with connecting to a laptop easily and my favorite is we can finally trash our programming laptop because we don't need the serial port anymore.

This new system will be amazing even though it will take a little while to learn it evens the field for new teams. I think our team will assign 2-3 people to just learn everything and relay most of it to the rest of the team. Easier said than done though because our entire team is going to jump on that.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5BRU1iqGpI

The real time mapping technology shown in this video looks very cool. Imagine a future game in which drivers could not see the field for all or part of each match. Kind of like the DARPA Grand Challenge. Maybe the guy in the video is giving us a hint.

I also like the use of the Wiimote. I can't wait to see what kinds of controllers teams use next year.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I have 4 comments...

1)
I think you forgot Canada and Mexico :D

2)
lim x-> 0 (sin(x)/x) = 1

Actually, I just learned this today in AP Calc class! Surprising how things come up.

3) Did you notice that the NI FIRST Community site came up yesterday at 5PM? I actually Googled "2009 FIRST Control System" yesterday at 10 PM and it came up. I basked in my newfound knowledge, but decided not to post and steal FIRST's thunder. I guess it didn't matter, someone else found out in the middle of the night. :rolleyes:

4)Did anyone notice that one of the abilities of the cRio was inter-robot communication. FINALLY! This could make for some VERY interesting challenges the next couple of years.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Today I contacted NI and the rep told me that the CompactRIO costs $3796.00, but thats buying it strait from them. He didn't know the FIRST price. The chassis cost the most for some reason.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

The fact that each robot runs as its own access point is intriguing to me for a simple reason: robot hacking. Yes, security of your robot will now become an issue. When Dean Kamen and company were on Curie field to demonstrate the new control board, my friend happened to be on his laptop. What did he find in the wireless networks? An SSID of "NItro", the name of the NI demo 'bot. He logged into it (unsecured!) but didn't do anything because he didn't know that he was actually logged into the robot. In hindsight, he could have made it actually dance to Soulja Boy. :rolleyes:

Something that upset me a bit was that they said we wouldn't be able to modify the VHDL for the FPGAs inside the new controller. That means we have no real idea of what's going on inside it, and can't unload any "special" tasks to it. Then in the same breath, they say the libraries will be hosted on a Sourceforge-alike site. That's not hypocracy, I swear >_>!

I also hope the router can be changed to whatever kind we like. A La Fonera running DD-WRT would be amazing for size and weight reasons compared to the DLink they had on the demonstration units. Oh well, I guess we'll find out more closer to kickoff... only 8 months to go.

According to the information session, you can develop on Linux (and Mac presumably) but not load code. I think an open source loader may be necessary...

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Framerate will be determined by the update rate at which the new Driver's Station communicates with the bot, which will be limited by the wireless bandwidth.

Resolution will be determined by the packet size of said updates.

The camera is color.

It is color-based tracking, however they didn't say you couldn't have two and it looks like it will be easy to do some limited multi-color shape tracking given the speed of the processor.

I'm not sure if it uses the FPGA to process the color tracking.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

My only concern is readiness and ability to meet the deadlines of FIRST. From talking with the NI reps at the pits, they are not very far along and many of their answers were: "it's in the works," "its being prototyped," or "we aren't sure yet.". They said they only got the prototypes they showed today about a month ago. Also they said the controller should have a final weigth of about 2.2 lbs. In terms of IFI, it seems like they will slowly phase them out, whether or not that is FIRST's intention. The rep I spoke to said they are looking into developing their own speed controller to compete with the Victor 884 from IFI. I could see the being a big blow to IFI and their connection to FRC. The only other thing they would have at that point is stuff like sprokets and traction wheels. I guess we will have to wait and see how things go.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Yeah I just showed a couple of my students powerthirst and then the FIRST video, and they remarked at how similar they were.

I said to another when sitting on Curie (this new control system is full of MENERGY!)

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Hi Everyone,

Knowing the FIRST community as I do I'm afraid this post might ruffle some feathers. However in the whole of this conversation, or in an of the documents, I haven't seen any talk of the security employed on the WiFi network that team's robots will now rely on. Is there any encryption whether it be WPA or proprietary from NI? Please note that I am NOT advocating anything malicious during a match but I can think of ways that the WiFi/ethernet/IP(?) nature of the control system could be exploited. Now I recognize that those in FIRST practice gracious professionalism and I would not presume to suggest that anyone involved with FIRST would attempt an exploit. However as we are all reminded to often not everyone in the world lives by the FIRST creed. I think a little prudence would be the responsible course for FIRST and NI in this case.

Can anyone speak to this?

Thanks,

Justin

P.S. I see the post a few posts up now and that is disturbing. Clearly this will have to be addressed, with respects to my thread any ideas what shape such security might likely take?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

According to the WPI PDF, we will be able to develop in Eclipse (C/C++) as well as Labview.

Are there any example code snippets yet? I am dying to dive right in! :rolleyes:

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I am so happy right now. No more virtualbox, no more usb to serial convertor...

For Next year, I want to see the controllers themselves running on WindRivers Linux distro;)

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

The FIRST rep that was at the mentor discussion today said that FIRST is outsourcing this issue in order to ensure they get an expert on the matter. They have to ensure security while also ensuring 24 teams (aka Atlanta setup) are able to be on the same network with equal bandwidth. Essentially, if they gave out how they were deciding to ensure security, someone somewhere would be that much closer to hacking into it. He also implied that FIRST would have detection methods and mechanisms in place to figure out the source of any tampering.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Well, with a webcam, there are many new possibilities, especially with optical character recognition. I don't know what the game is next year, but I can tell you this: 2009 will be one heck of a challenge for us programmers.

I wish our robot had the cRIO this year. If we did, it would've went around the track ABNORMALLY FAST! It would compete against Kenyans! It'd run as fast as Kenyans! It'd run so fast, people would think it's Kenyan! Then there'll be a tie and it'll be deported back to Kenya!!!

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

The most information I have seen about programming in C\C++ for the new controller is on this page.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

If we're not getting a new control system each season, I hope that we can expect lower registration fees in 2010 and beyond. I don't know how it's possible to justify charging teams the same fees while giving them fewer resources.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

That seems weird, as almost everyone I know or have talked to who are involved in other robot competitions (such as Battlebots, etc.) regard the IFI speed controllers as among the best in the business.

Edit; If anything, opening up the allowable speed controllers to several brands that meet certain criteria would be fine. But to purposely just move as far as possible away from a product with a successful track record in various robotics competitions seems like a dumb decision.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I've been watching various robotics competition shows lately and it really surprises me because the victor does show up a lot more than I'd expect and it's weird to see something on TV and know that I use the same exact parts as them.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

This really isn't a very hard problem to solve.

The RC and the OS can share a secret and use a checksum
for packet authentication.

The field control system can use public key methods, so that
a secret need not be globally shared for packet authentication.

Encryption is not required and it is best that the field control
system can see the traffic in any event.

In my view, it would be a nice if FIRST used sound methods
make sure that the communications for the field control system
is not spoofed. Putting the methods out for public review
is the best way to make sure that the chosen means is sound.

I will add that setting up the C and C++ environment as an
open source development environment is the cat's meow for
the FIRST community. A applaud this loudly!

Eugene

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Without having read the entire thread, here's some thoughts:

• No more MCC18! GCC does PowerPC, so any platform should be able to work
• How is WindRiver IDE different from Eclipse? What fancy additions from them do teams need?
• Are things like the downloader going to be open sourced (like the libraries)?
• How much control over the LCD does software have?
• How are modes implemented? How is the software (at the equivelent of the IFIlib level) structured?
• Does the PowerPC bit imply things like multitasking? Could we write some fanciful background thing to do some cool stuff?
• I like their solution for the OI. Still hackable, but no longer needing the chicklet hacks (what kind of restrictions does the USB have?)
• 8 40-amp breakers? 8???
• The Digital Side Car appears to be IFI's toy. I suspect a number of teams will like the addition of SPI
• I guess I'll have to make time to actually mentor a team this year, just to keep current
• If something segfaults, what happens to it?

Addendum:

• C++??? For real? No, NO! Word for the wise: Avoid pointers.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

If they want security, then why not just use WPA2 encryption [with certificates]?

For example, for general use at driver training, demonstrations, and possibly off-season events, either a public certificate can be used or they can just operate the robots over an unencrypted network. But at every event, a unique and time-sensitive certificate is loaded onto the controllers for WPA2 authentication.

After the competition, the time-sensitive certificate deactivates, and the team can return to using the robot on unencrypted networks.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Authentication of each and every packet on the wireless network is far more important in this environment than the conventional notion of wireless network security.

Lets assume that the field control system, the robots, and the operator stations are all connected to each other by one ethernet cable and no outside influence is possible. This is the goal of conventional wireless network security.

You still want every packet from the field control system to be authenticated, so that the other nodes on the net can't spoof it. You also want every packet back and forth between your robot and your operator station to be authenticated so that another node on the net can't spoof this communication.

Going further, if robots on your alliance are going to communicate with each other, you what these packets to be authenticated so that spoofing can't happen, and every robot would have to use public key methods to do this so that it can publish the data required to authenticate packets coming from it.

If you are going to spend any effort on network security for the communication on the competition field, the best thing to do is assume that one of the nodes that you have allowed on the net will attempt a spoof. If you prevent that, you don't have to worry so much about what nodes get on the net.

Eugene

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

um how about you set MAC authentication on the AP, simple and fairly effective, going to take people a little while to figure out your MAC.
All of those other ones take little time to crack. And people have enough trouble with getting radios to work at home and that is straight forward. Adding certs, now you are asking for it.

Remember this is not a NSA secret project... Or is it, what have you all gotten me into.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Why is that such a strange thing? Microchip was the odd man out when it came to implementing a C++ implementation on their microcontrollers.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

They may be amortizing the expense across several years, then using the remaining revenue as a license fee to support operations and maintenance.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Guys - reread the documentation before you get too excited. This system will be able to handle multiple robots per channel. That means packetized data identified much like nat packets are identified to be sent to each computer by the router.

Also, I'm feeling slightly better about the possibilities of C - because of this statement:

-Parity between C/C++ and NI LabVIEW libraries

If NI truly sticks to that and releases a C/C++ library when they review a labview one with the same basic functionality, it will all be good.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

It looks like the power distribution pannel produces 24 volts for the compact rio. So what happens under heavy load and the 12 volt battery is pulled very low? I don't see any back up battery. I didn't see any specs on power consumption for the rio and the moduals and the access point. Did some one forget how first teams love to abuse thier motors and Batteries? Seams to me there needs to be a battery back up.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

It looks like the power distribution pannel produces 24 volts for the compact rio. So what happens under heavy load and the 12 volt battery is pulled very low? I don't see any back up battery. I didn't see any specs on power consumption for the rio and the moduals and the access point. Did some one forget how first teams love to abuse thier motors and Batteries? Seams to me there needs to be a battery back up.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

At 1:08 in that movie, they say 'Underwater exploration'

Water Game

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I've been using cRio's this semester. Compiling FPGA code takes from 5 minutes for a simple (simple!) program, to around 15 for a still-not-that-complex-but-does-more program. It finally made this xkcd comic make sense.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

First off, this is still early in it's stage so a lot of that is being worked out. And just like the sidecar isn't covered, maybe they did it just for show. Patience, people. Patience.

Secondly, dude, double post. Plz baleet won, kthnxbai.

Did they say anything about speeding it up a bit, because I know our programmer will go nuts trying to compile last-minute code. Especially if we're working with complex robot code, I don't want to wait an hour to see if it works.

Also, I love xkcd. That one didn't make sense to me either.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Just like all platforms. What you wrote isn't a strike against National Instruments more than a perfect example as to why HDLs are different from conventional computer languages. I was doing research on FPGAs and found that other people were amazed at the length of time for a simple VHDL example to compile. It makes sense because the compiling process isn't the same for a HDL as opposed to a language like C++.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Security through obscurity is an awful, awful way to approach security. Once someone figures out your algorithm (and someone will), then it is game over. If we assume that the attackers are going to figure out how you're securing it anyway, why not let people with good intentions know the algorithm as well so they can point out potential flaws?

The strength of a security system should lie in the attacker not knowing an easily-changed key, not in them not knowing the algorithm.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

For reasons that eugenebrooks has covered (post #120), (post #123), namely being able to identify each node and prevent spoofing, simply filtering MAC addresses may not be enough. Both nodes that are supposed to be connected and/or a rouge node (say a malicious fan), could spoof a MAC address.
I agree that MAC filtering would probably suffice for differentiating between each robots traffic. However, I feel that wireless security is an important aspect to consider since, in the eventuality that there was a cracking attempt on the network, nobody would want to have their team and robot suffer. Network security at a FIRST event is once instance where I feel the Regan saying of "Trust but verify" is quite pertinent.
Also, a second on Bongle's post as well; security through obscurity is one of those funny things that I've read about working out poorly more than a few times.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I assume that the robot code will be within the still-not-that-complex-but-does-more category, if not higher. I hope that I won't have to put together autonomous code between matches like I had to do this year. Fifteen minutes from the compiler to the robot. Wow.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Note: cRios let you run code in two places. The FPGA handles low-level device communication and any simple integer maths you would like to do. However, you can pass it all up to the PowerPC (which code compilation doesn't take nearly as long on) and have the PowerPC twiddle with it and send commands back down to the FPGA.

So once you get your low-level stuff working on the FPGA, you may not need to tweak the FPGA code, and can just fiddle with your higher level algorithms on the PowerPC.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

The first product I worked on at Motorola took 4 hours for a full build, and 20-30 minutes to recompile if you changed one line of code. It's really not uncommon for lengthy build times in the industry. It makes you a much better programmer because you really need to take the time to understand the changes you're making before you recompile.

A lot of people get spoiled on simple projects in college or for hobby purposes and get themselves into a "change code, compile, test, repeat" loop that just isn't possible on more complex software.

It's quite possible the more complex software that will likely accompany this new controller will come with longer build times than you're used to now with the IFI hardware.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I admit to not being familiar with the acronyms you are using. VHDL? etc.

Is this specific to Labview or are you suggesting that even teams using Eclipse / etc and programming in C will see this kind of compile time?

IF that is the case, and C will take that long to compile for these applications, it may render it completely unusable if you have to do something that requires multiple compiles, like tuning a PID loop, unless you get more fancy and create the ability to adjust the constants with a pot / buttons etc.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Someone questioned the cRIO's waterproofness... oh dear, let the water game speculation come flying now...

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

VHDL is a hardware description language which is compiled differently than a traditional programming language. Instead of compiling down to machine code it compiles down to the logic level to be burned into a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHSIC_H...ption_Language

Depending on the rules, teams will either rarely touch the FPGA code, or never touch it. So the long compile times for compiling the VDHL code for the FPGA aren't an issue. Most likely FIRST will implement the disable logic in the FPGA. If that is the case, they won't want us to potentially mess up the disable code and therefore won't let us change it.

Most, if not all, development for our robots will be done for the 400 MHz processor. Which should have a quick compile process and a smokin' fast download.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I am extremely excited about the ability to finally write code in C++. Other than what I've read on the site, does anybody know any specifics about how this will work? Will we be able to simply compile and transfer the file using the wireless into the controller? Will we have to use a specific IDE or will the compiler be useable across multiple IDEs provided we use the libraries given to us for the processor? My dream would be to write the robot code in the Microsoft Visual C++ IDE, which is better than MPLab by leaps and bounds, mostly due to Intellisense.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

that is crazy!!!!

cant wait to test it out!

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Uggg. I think I used the wrong acroynm. A hardware description language is completly seperate from C.
That renders the point of having an FPGA moot.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Unless FIRST is open to adding in features that teams request, and provides a basic configuration that supports some nice sensors. I would be quite surprised if that FIRST didn't implement some logic to support quadrature encoders and only slightly less surprised if they didn't implement logic for sensors like Sonar also. Otherwise you are right.

It still would be nice if they let us program the FPGA ourselves.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

It absolutely does not - depending on what is done inside the FPGA, it could be a great tool - for example, if the WPI libraries were implemented on the FPGA, or the adc/encoder/gyro/competition mode code are on the FPGA, it is considerably faster than a microcontroller AND frees considerable processing room, as well as saves time coding. If the FPGA is designed to automatically do many of the low level functions that we as programmers normally have to wrangle with (like what Kevin Watson's libraries are used for), it would be an incredible help. Imagine never having to write code to interface with the camera, or have the gyro angle automatically calculated for us instead of having to do it ourselves - there are much greater problems that could then be tackled.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Some teams might like to program the FPGA. Other teams might like to design their own custom motors. FIRST wisely limits the degree to which teams can engineer at the component level, for several good reasons. Safety is a big one. Reasonable limits on work during build season are another. Keeping teams focussed on the game challenge, rather than component details, is still another.

I'd favor no team programming of the FPGA. [But of course I'm not a VHDL programmer.]

I also favor keeping the rule against custom motors. [And I am a motor designer.]

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

As an embedded software engineer I wouldn't want to comment on that until we know more about the architecture of the new system. Specifically where the "safety features" reside. There's some good ideas floating around about FPGA based counters for sensors such as encoders.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

After reading a lot of the stuff available from FIRST, WPI, NI, and Wind River... and doing some integration/interpretation... and guessing, the following are some random opinions

• . VxWorks is essentially (very!) unix-like operating system.

• it uses a BSP (board specific package) as h/w abstraction layer so it can be targetted to multiple platforms. The BSP exists for the cRIO. The normal VxWorks comes with a bunch of different BSPs, we may end up with a stripped down version of the environment with only the cRIO - that would make sense.
• there is a configuration process whereby you add in or remove components that you want in the RTOS build - standard stuff. Which means you can add rom-based file system, FTP, and other capability that is already available in the VxWorks kit as needed. There will be a standard config for competition, but for prototyping this opens up lots of stuff like application data logging during testing via WiFi. There are separate Broadcom device drivers available, for example, and other 3rd party driver packages.
• The IDE (Workbench) is Eclipse-based. You have the ability to add REAL breakpoints and other stuff for debugging. You'll need to compile with debug flags, otherwise you only get assembler view. Compiling w/debug goes for any libraries you'd use which is why any FIRST provided added-value such as pre-canned drivers for gyro, et.al. would need to be in a controlled source form.
• Both the Wind River C and GNU C compilers will work.
• VxWorks is RTOS, applications are either integrated into the kernel or as application. Multitasking native with 256 priorities and round-robin scheduling within priorities (so essentially unlimited tasking until you run out of main memory).
• a ton of documentation is available (I'm looking at 100mb of stuff), everything from getting started, to writing your own BSP (as if we'd ever need or want to do that!). For software mentors, start reading!
• (ok weird factoid), interrupt latency is slightly better than RTLinux, at around ~70usec (published number was 100us but that was on a MPC8260 @200Mhz processor vs 400Mhz MCP52xx of cRIO... but should give a ball park figure).
• fun stuff like a shell window on the target (cRIO) that you connect to and use from the development host [I guess like a console].
• lots and lots of other good stuff if you're an applications programmer.

Someone (WPI?) will provide the pre-canned "driver" software for the common interface devices; gyro, camera, sonar, and the like similar to the WPILIB today. It will be provided in source form. This combined with a default VxWorks project will provide the default/base code for the robot next year. I haven't read far enough into "Wind River General Purpose Platform, VxWorks Edition - Getting Started" to see how much work it will be to change drivers, but if the pre-canned driver software is open-sourced then you could use that to slightly modify things as needed for your robot - but suspect that shouldn't be needed often.

Custom h/w and/or driver software will likely be discouraged the first year. Both would make it difficult to provide the type of deep generic support needed across all the teams. The programming of the FPGA will be canned and shouldn't be touched by individual teams again for the same reasons. Maybe in later years we'll be able to change this.

LabVIEW is built on top of what VxWorks provides, so C/C++ is actually the native method of building apps.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

After reading the first post to the last, I went back to the first again.:ahh:

Can someone help explain this stuff to me in peasants terms?:confused:

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Its a "PC" running a flavor of unix operating system that you'll need to write an application program for. Hardware drivers for all the common stuff will be written for you so you just have to call them to get the data you're interested in.

Take EasyC or WPILIB x 1000 in terms of the number of library calls that are available.
and

and

and

and on and on and on...

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

So it's actually the same programming accomplished in a different style?

Edit: Had to fix my grammer. :p

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

And since its in C++, you would still be able to write in C, as long as it tagged as C, and in C++ at the same time ,right? Does this mean we will be writing classes, object, and using the C++ templates, et cetera?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

you need to be careful. While VxWorks has a posix interface, but it is not Unix or Linux. You can go along way treating it as if it was a unix system and then you get bit by something that does not work as you expect.

You can do things with the vxWorks shell that are just not unix like at all. For example, you can call routines from the shell much like you can call programs from a linux command prompt.

I hope that Wind River will give us access to some of the extra tools that can come with Workbench. For example, Wind River has tools which can monitor memory use as the your program is running, so you can detect memroy leaks. There are also tools for profiling so you can know how much time is spent in various routiens and how often those routines are called.

Hopefully we can get Wind River to spring for some training assistance to allow us to make the best use of their tools.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I do this on the unix I support from a utility called crash all the time. Crash provides an interface into either a live system (/dev/kmem) or a memory dump (crash) and lets you do LOTS of stuff that ain't application programming safe! :yikes: . You can call routines, change data, whatever you want.

But from an application programming standpoint, the API provided in VxWorks is very unix-like.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't confuse utilities unique to VxWorks with the environment that the typical team will be using (if using C).

Ditto on training. It would be especially nice if the full analysis tool set was available, possibly at extra, but discounted, cost.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Wow - this looks pretty rugged. I can't help but wonder how long it would take Ricky to rip a port out of it... ;)

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

but we don't have any serial cables to accidentally screw in anymore!

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

The system looks, awesome. To me(I missed all the sessions and everything gotta catch up)its a lot more down to making a WHOLE lot better auto. code than the IFI controller was. Also from the pics I saw, it looks way more cooler and professional then IFI.

YES! The way our board now is, its a pain in the butt to get to the program/tether port plugged in. So when someone just touches it and it goes in, it can set us back 10 to 15min getting it back out.:ahh:

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Sorry - not OK. First, the non-overlapping channels 1, 6, 11 are not totally free from adjacent channel interference. They are called non-overlapping because you have three channels with nominal channel widths of 22mhz spaced 25 mhz apart. When transmitting on 6 for example, most of the signal energy will be in 4 - 8. But there will still be signal energy in channels 3 and 9 that can interfere with channels centered on 1 and 11. While the adjacent out of band signals are typically -20db - 35db below the peak signal, this is still sufficient to cause interference. This is because the signal in the adjacent channel, while 20 - 35 db lower than the the peak signal, can still be nearly as strong in absolute level as a signal you are trying to receive that is ten times father away. Adjacent channel interference is a particular problem when the interfering transmitter is very much closer than the transmitter you are trying to listen to. This is exactly the case if you try to operate several robots in close proximity with the robots relatively far from the stations they are talking to.

Even when operating on the exact same channel, two networks interfere only when they occupy the channel at the same time. Very lightly loaded networks, even on the same channel, have little noticeable interference consequences due to link layer retransmission. You won't see the effects until you have larger amounts of data on one or the other network or you are running an application that is sensitive to packet delay. Teleop control is such an application where you do not want such delays. You won' care about a 400ms delay surfing the web. You will when controlling your robot.

I suspect the Cisco example showed access points spread apart by some tens of meters. This is enough to reduce the interference seen at the access points. However, two laptops close together operating on different networks will experience lots of mutual interference. In the normal office operating environment wireless nodes are normally several meters apart or operating on the same network.
I have no idea what 5.47% crosstalk interference means. I would expect that the total combined throughput of the 6 networks you suggest would be well below that of a single network. Operating 6 robots on 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 would probably not be too pretty, especially with synchronous traffic. When the robots are in close proximity, they will overwhelm the signals from the much more distant stations they are communicating with. The traffic would have to be extremely low for this to be workable. Bluetooth would probably a much better solution for multiple independent networks in close proximity. Or 802.11a where there are many more channels. Or a channelized system like we have now (operating on other than 2.4 GHZ).

Operating a single access point per field with 6 robot stations and using wired LAN from the Operator Stations to the field controller is IMHO the way to achieve the best performance. The single access point can employ 802.11e to provide QoS for teleop control packets (and possibly telemetry) and the beacon rate and other network parameters can be tuned for optimum system performance. The Field controller can also shape the traffic to equalize the access for the six teams or even for the two alliances. Adjacent field would operator on non-overlapping channels. All of this off-the-shelf stuff. There would be very few re-transmissions or holdoffs in such a scenario - mostly from outside interferences. If FIRST is planning on 802.11b/g, I do hope this is what they are planning. Personally, I'd like to see 802.11 a/b/g radios in Linux capable boxes all around for maximum flexibility.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

You know, I was just thinking that it would've been fun and rewarding if FIRST had challenged the community to come up with a control system--we're a big huge bunch of engineers and the like with tons of experience between ourselves with embedded programming, board design, experience hardening electronics to survive harsh environments, etc. I think that given the opportunity we could've come up with something absolutely wicked and cheap, too. While NI is an AMAZING company, and they make absolutely sweet products, part of the charm of the IFI system is that it was designed for FIRST. I feel like the community could have done an amazing job of that--then they could be manufactured and sold to teams at cost. Oh well--just...everybody remember this idea for 10 years down the road when we change systems again! :D

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Does this mean I can just use my existing Eclipse install on my Mac? Maybe add some plugins? Or do I have to use Windriver? What features will Windriver give me over Eclipse?

I can has link? All I could find was the WPI page and some stuff on NI's site.. Not 100MB, no enough to get started.. If all else fails, be cool and upload a package to FileDropper or something?;)

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I agree, the power distribution board provides the power regulation for the RIO and the Wireless Access Point as seen in these two photos. It would be nice to see a big capacitor there designed to survive brown outs.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

These look like high-speed switch mode regulators. Large capacitors are not required, and can even be detrimental. Since the 24V supply is an up-converter, it can probably maintain regulation down to 7V on the main battery, maybe even less.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Does everyone think we can count on Kevin-style ADC processing built-in next year?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

100% Correct.

The 24V supply is an LM3478 running at 600kHz. As you said, it is a boost (up) converter.

It can survive well below 7V input.

You are correct in saying that for some controllers, large bulk capacitance is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, in some specific instances, they can hurt performance. For this particular controller, it would be fine to add big bulk capacitance.

However, it wouldn't really help that much. The problem with large capacitors is that they have poor frequency response. A big "can" capacitor is a less effective use of space / money than smaller ceramic caps are for the frequency it is switching at.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Does anyone have any of the videos of the thing that happened on curie with the new controller? I have been waiting but still none of the videos are showing up. Did anyone record the feed?

-Mike AA

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I think so. When I talked to the NI guys, they mentioned (among other things) oversampling, noise cancellation, integration (for a gyro signal) and other such goodies.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

For those worrying about security - I was told by an NI rep that FIRST recognized the issue and now has NASA helping them develop a method of securing communication.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

From what I understand, having attended the "training" session at Nationals and talked with the NI guys separately, the FPGA will most likely be acting like the old IFI Master processor, and therefore will not be user configurable. I cannot be absolutely sure, however, as getting detailed information out of them was like pulling teeth! :rolleyes:

Something interesting with regards to the PowerPC processor they keep mentioning--NI appears to be using a Virtex II Pro FPGA in the CompactRIO. That FPGA actually has two hard-core 450MHz PowerPC processors connected to the FPGA fabric. I wonder if we will be allowed to use both cores, or if they are using the other core for something else (more Master functionality, perhaps).

The biggest thing that is bugging me at this point is the sheer size of the applications that are downloaded to the controller. 75Mb+ for a simple two-wheel drive control program??? That screams bloatware to me! I wonder how easy it is going to be to chew through the 128Mb of FLASH storage?

I also talked at length with the NI guys about the "Real time vision system". All of the vision algorithms actually run on the PowerPC processor, and if you do unbounded OCR or any vision processing at a higher level than basic color thresholding or simple shape detection, the system will not be real time. They were able to get the "reading" demo to work in real time because the words were surrounded by either an oval or a rectangle. I am not sure if they were using the OCR after that first processing stage or not, but they were definitely keying in on the shape. I just wanted to clear up some misunderstandings and confusing / conflicting information on that particular subsystem. ;)

All that said, if they can work out some of the bugs, this looks like a very powerful system and it will be interesting to see what teams can do with it!

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Well guys here goes...

I agree we as the FIRST community of students/mentors/teachers should
be consulted on such a critical change in the fundamental nature of
our robots operation.

I have experience using NI hardware in many of our systems at work and
its really good stuff ( and really expensive!) The problem here is that
NI is not an embedded house. There support is really good but they tend
to expect to talk to engineering types because that is the high caliber of
support people they have on the other end of the line. (Support agreements
do cost money in certain cases, if it is something they did wrong its no
charge.)

The compact rio is definitely rugged serious stuff. Its all over the world but
heres where I have a problem.

I weighed the unit on the Archmedes inspections scales 3.5 pounds!:ahh:
You have to add at least 2 "handoff" boards which break out the 32I/O
module so you can use them. Oh then there is the "power board". In general
we are taking a unit that is supposed to have D connectors on it and trying
to remanufacture little modules that make it all look like standard 3 pin
pwm cable connectors. The analog module has an adaptor (FIRST DESIGNED)
to add the 5 volt bus back on so we keep the exisitng pwm analog plug.

The super power 400 mhz power pc is an asset to be assured and I was
getting pretty excited on the first day when they said we had the ability
to program the on board FPGA. The next day however we were told no that
isn't going to happen. The reason for probably taking it away was simple
no PWM control modules so they are using the FPGA to generate the pwm
signals. These are routed out through the 32 Digital I/O board to the
breakout board and finally to the Victors. ( yea they are still using them)

Bottom line guys is we have a ton of hardware being shoved into a
configuration that allows standard First parts to be plugged in. As you
have already seen we haven't even gotten to the radio link stuff.

I am not a fan of upconvertors for power if you can avoid them. The word
convertor means power loss. Its also means electrical noise.

The other HUGE PROBLEM here is we are taking NI's preferred path to
nirvana Labview. Its a language ( or picture grams ) designed to make it
easy for nonprogrammers to run instrumentation without knowing much.
This takes away from our students learning about embedded code and
sequential programming. Thats where the extra companies come in to
write a compiler so the students have the option to use C C++. There
is still the matter of converting Labview stuff to be callable by the new
compiled code. Are you seeing a pattern here? We are taking NI and trying
to convert it back into what we already have.

I thought well at least we will have access to NI's incredible Vision packge
VBAI which would finally allow our kids a great vision tool that is easy to
use but no we don't get that either. They are going to write something that
allows us access to some vision tools ( dont' know which ones).

I really like NI. They are a great company and make great hardware that
is almost always callable by langauges like VB ( still the most popular
programming language that's in use), also callable from C++ but they only
support hardware support APIs. This is how we use it, not LABVIEW.
With no zoom feature on Labview ( they have promised this for years, its
there number one complaint from users on their list) Its hard to isolate
sections of the code to allows students to focus on a small part at a time.
Very hard to document since its all just pictures. I am very familiar with
labview and write an array of clusters with properties any day but this
is not what we should expose our students to at this time. Its great for
what its intended. Doing some instrumentation with graphing without much
knowledge.

One of the workaround options is to compile LabView to Dll see http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3517

Another thing, why write a new compiler when you have NI CVI
http://www.ni.com/lwcvi/ this allows NI calls C code to be writen in Visual C++.


With all the serious new embdedded hardware out there today there are
other options. Dean charges us with making the minds of tommorow
with the ability to solve the worlds problems. Its a lot easier to do that
when our students know they can buy the processor we use in an IFI
controller for less than 10 bucks and make the astounding machines they
make now. If we go this route they need to buy a 2000 dollar Compact
RIO to make a new IPOD?

And by the way where is the 3.5+ pounds coming from in our weight
budget? The wheels?

Sorry for the size of this post and but I want us to make some noise here so we as a community make this decision. I only hope the reason we are doing this isn't money based that NI is a large sponsor.(notice how small the
microchip sponsorship logo was on the banners at Einstein?)

If a moderator from FIRST is reading this please contact me. We need to
talk. You guys are trying to do the right thing. So are we.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Not if you ask nicely, it isn't.
So far, most teams already have the software. I know our team has at least the base program and the RTM because of our participation in the DAQ project, and i also have a subscription to the NI developer stuff through some of our mentors.

so the subtotal could come out to $0 to $2500 if you ask properly.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I was worried about this too. I asked NI about this exact question, and they say it has a boost converter. For those that don't know what it is (I'm not all too clear on it myself) it is a device whic can take a supplied voltage and increase it to the desired voltage, but will possibly drain a battery faster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_converter

now I'm thinking the same thing most other teams are also thinking. Faster battery drain? Those batteries can just make it through these matches as it is, so this may just be too much.

My prediction for next year:

Different Batteries

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

From the FAQ:
http://first.wpi.edu/2009_FRC_Controller_FAQ_FINAL.pdf

Q What batteries will we use? Will we be able to use our batteries from past robots with the system?

A FIRST will continue to use the standard 12V SLA type batteries. Past year’s batteries would be compatible.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

good call, missed that. I've been really out of it since the competition, and haven't got a good rest yet. Took a plane back to Jersey early Sunday morning

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Yes! 100% correct on all counts--being an embedded developer myself, these were the exact complaints I had, but didn't know if I should mention them here or not.

If you want someone else to help "make noise", I'll be glad to join in...

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

According to the specs the cRIO draws only 20 watts. The recommended power supply is 48 watts, or 2 amps at 24 volts. The upconverter should have an efficiency of about 80% so the input current with 10 volts on the battery should be about 2.5 amps. If your stalled motors drop the battery down to 5 volts the input power to the upconverter may rise to 5 amps but this is nothing compared to 100 amps pulling down the battery.

The primary concern is maintaining glitch free power so that the robot controller doesn't reset during the low voltages that result from motors operating near stall conditions. The design of the new PDU looks pretty good at covering this issue.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/index.html

A new category has just been put up about the new FRC control system.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I, too, have experiance with NI equipment. Believe me, their staff is well equipped to handle any level of technical difficulty. And with the amount of equipment that FIRST will be purchacing, a support agreement should be supplied. I trust FIRST to make sure on the support aspect of this deal.

The weight is nothing but another engineering challange. And the adaptor boards are nothing but breakout boards, a standard in manufacturing automation.

More than likely FIRST is going to use the FPGA to have the DIO mimic PWM outputs. They also talked about on-board image recognicion (sp?) and OCR capabilities. Most likely these will be on the FPGA. FIRST may also include the data transmission encryption keys on the FPGA so that they will be much harder to be spoofed, and can be changed by pit admin with just a download.

From what I've seen, the upconverter they use is high frequency and thus little noise generated.

I too am a bit concerned about the power loss and power consumption of the controller (as we haven't seen any data on that yet), but I will hold judgement on those until I see the datasheet for the unit.

Labview is as powerful as any other object orientated language. The fact that it's objects are depicted by pictographs instead of words does not change that. Labview can also import into it any API (created from C/C++/Pascal/VB/C# etc,etc,etc) ... the only issue is the base processor it is compiled for and the hardware specific calls.

More than likely it'll be a stripped down version of NI Vision and will be imbedded into the FPGA

[sarcasm]
Oh my gosh,I've been doing it wrong all this time. I've been using LabView to control motion control systems for a manufacturing enviroment for the last 5 years. How could I have been so wrong :D
[/sarcasm]

My assumption (yeah, I know what happends when you assume) is that we will be getting a stripped down version of this compiler, and that it will allow calls from C/C++ (but possibly not VB or Pascal)

The IFI controller was $400.
We do not yet know the price of a second cRio, so for now I cannot comment on the value (or not)

Sounds like a challange to me.

No problem about the size of your post. You have concerns (and valid ones at that ... I just disagree, but thats my opinion). CD is a place for these discussions.

NIs and FIRSTs motivations should be questioned. As teachers/advisors/mentors we are charged with questioning things. However, in this case, I believe (my opinion) that you are reading too much into logo sizes and corporate shenanigains (although I'll be the first to say I can be wrong).

The above is JM(NS)HO

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

thanks for the vote of confidence on the post I was a little scared to
put it all down but like you I have a lot of years, and about 250000 controls
out in the world doing the job with little bitty micros.

At the weigh in area many engineers and mentors voiced their concerns
about the way the system seemed to be "not quite the right fit yet".

You know how cool it is when a student cranks up their first micro!
We need to keep the dream alive. If we can use NI and do that then great.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Sorry about I don't know what the JM(NS)HO is but thanks for the
review. The reason I want FIRST to contact me is that I was prepared
to run all 1500 controls on my production line for at my cost to help first teams have less money to pay out instead of
more for the new system. I dont want my company name on the banner.

Open forums do good. I took a chance and spoke many of the concerns
that occured at Nationals. I didn't mean to offend anyone. As I said
I really like NI and I am a LabView programmer but also teach HIgh School
Engineering Classes when I am not designing at my Company.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

It is always nice to have a new controller to play with. When I got started as a mentor with FIRST in 2003 it was the first year of autonomous. The processor was a pig (no pun intended) and it couldn't do encoders, we had to build our own pre-processor to process the encoders and pass data to the FIRST processor. 2004 changed all that.

I am glad FIRST is staying up with the times. But I have concerns mostly along the price range. The Best thing about 2008 is that you could use a vex to practice things and they were close enough and cheap.

No way as a mentor can I afford to go out and buy the new system. Big question how are we going to get these systems into the kid’s hands?

How much will the FLL and FTC kits cost?

As far as power, most teams can not even take advantage of the 2008 processor. Even at Atlanta there were many teams that could not do any autonomous and most teams only doing 1-2 lines. We helped many teams to do a basic autonomous mode.

I am sure this new processor will have software that will make it easier for inexperienced teams to do more. But also it has so much power that the power teams can do so much more and thus will leave the weaker teams even further behind.

Bottom line my main concern is the cost of the new system, with something cheaper FIRST could get more of them into the hands of more people to learn from one another.

Just some thoughts.

But I am excited, once we get it you know we will work hard to maximize it.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I apologize if I came off kinda heavy handed (wasn't my intention). My intention was to show my background with NI equipment (mostly LabView programming with NI or MCC DAQ modules), which seemed counterpoint to your discussions and concerns.

oh and JM(NS)HO = Just my (not so) Humble opinion :P

I, too, have my concerns about the new controller. I'm concerned about the level of abstraction that LabView and VxWorks gives, and that the students may be missing out on protocol and hardware control stuff. Curently, with the IFI stuff, setting a PWM doesn't require the kids to learn about the timing of the 'on' pulse, about hardware delays, or any of that protocol ... and I'm concerned that we may be getting farther away from that understanding and utilizing systems and controls that students have no idea how they work.

My other concern is that teams will be getting 1 of these units and if it gets damaged, some teams may not be able to pay for a replacement. Depending on the cost of a replacement, teams might be required to skip a year or 2 if their controller becomes damaged. It's my hope that FIRST gets a decent enough discount for a single replacement (or spare) unit so that teams don't have to worry about this (I know they are working on it ... but it is a serious concern).

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Doug has a great point there are alot of teams even at nationals that can only do a few lines of code. Before everyone here just complains, just remember that there is a growing divide between FRC teams.

For example, I have had PAY to mentor FRC teams for the last 5 years. Some of these school can't even afford wire. Plus there are teachers that just run a team for the stipend. Compare that to one team that I know that get 1.3 MILLION dollars a year, over 50 mentors and have there own 100,000 sq foot workshop, equipped with 30+ CNC machines (They also do a lot more than FIRST). This divide is not just in the financial realm, but also in # and quality of mentors/teachers, and access to resources. We need to realize this and work hard at creating a community so all teams can fulfill the vision of FIRST.

The new controller helps is a lot of areas. I have seen some of the best FLL programmers just get intimidated my the nature of C and decide not to pursue programming at the FRC level. One of the biggest benefits of the new controller is a similar and familiar interface across all levels of FIRST.

FRC hardware was becoming rather clickish. the ifi stuff does not scale to handle a lot of the sensors and buses that are out there (CAN anyone?). The new controller give us so much more and above all it gives us the ability to freely and easily adapt this to other challenges outside of FIRST. We need to give NI and FIRST a break and let them develop the new controller. IFI had years to perfect the controller and it was still far from perfect.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Cisco had their access points only ten feet from each other and sent all of the data from a single point.


It means that through extrapolation of the power curves of a wireless network the percentage above -30dB is 5.47% of the area with respect to a full power range.

Yes there is a drop in throughput but the robots only need 19.2 Kbps. Wireless can run up to 11Mbps. This means there can be almost a 99% drop and the robots would still work fine.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Adman,

The points you make are appropriate and well measured. You can always pound a square peg into a round hole if you use a big enough hammer. The benefits this system brings are outweighed, by its cost, and size, weight, and power (SWaP). I see this abstraction as a step in the wrong direction in terms of teaching embedded system concepts and showing students that they have the technical capability and financial resources to build a micro-controller based subsystem. As an example, we had team members build an ATtiny2313 based project in the pre-season and as a result we were able to modify those to make a custom programmable Robocoach transmitter and multi-channel receiver. One of the good things about the IFI RC in my opinion was that teams were encouraged to build sensor co-processors and at least for larger teams, that was an excellent way to allow more students to be involved in both the HW and SW aspects of the control system. Somewhere in this thread the comment was made that a CAN bus interface was not possible with the old RC but I think they failed to see that a CAN to RC (maybe serial, or analog) converter board project would be a great learning opportunity.

I think that a team really needs three control systems; one for the competition bot, one for some type of test/integration platform/mobility base, and a third for control system development. The VeX controllers were a very good low cost option as extra development platforms for our software developers. The one extra cRIO is going to severely limit the time each developer has to unit test their code. Maybe the new system will be so abstracted and easy to use that little or no unit testing will be required (humor) but in all seriousness hard lessons learned about data types, protected sections, what the volatile keyword means etc. are likely to be lost.

From a teaching perspective what was really valuable about the FRC programming experience was that it was the first time most students worked with something besides FLL block diagram code or the school CS classes in JAVA, visual C/C++/C#.

I think that we will put even more emphasis on the use of micro-controller based co-processors as a way for students to learn how to develop powerful low cost, low power affordable solutions.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I am not sure who from NI would have said that, but it is incorrect information.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

During the mentor Q&A, the FIRST rep said that the security issues would be outsourced to a private firm. He didn't mention the name of that firm.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I think we are starting to get a consensus here.

* We all want our students to learn how things really work.
* We all see students become somewhat intimidated sometimes by C at first.
* We all have seen students overcome their fear of C
* We know LabView is a great way to teach control system basics but
can mask the background info that leads to true product design
in the embedded world if that is our cause
* We are all very nervous about how much these systems will cost
* We see the split in minimally backed teams and the teams that
may have these already on order from NI.
*Also considering we are adding more parts to the system, the analog
adaptor plugin and the expansion board and the power inverter the
robot now has potentially more things to trouble shoot to keep the
robot running.

Let's all make solid proposals of how we can solve these problems of
implementation.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Am I the only one who has yet to see any video demos or anything on the site? not that i am antsy or anything!?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

That's not what FIRST is about. It may be how your car works in real life but it isn't the ideal way to introduce kids to programming because embedded systems needs a hefty understanding of electrical engineering.
As yoyodyne clearly shows the split was exasperbated by the old system as well.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

We have a wide spectrum of programming abilities and experience as I would assume is the case for most teams. In some cases previous experience came from FLL and FTC and in others it has been from their own development activities including of all things Gamemaker which is a pretty good introduction to OO methodology. There has always been the option to program graphically but our experience was that the students that were interested in Kevin’s code were able to take that knowledge and develop their own microcontroller projects some for the robot and some for themselves. I don’t think the teams are going to get the VxWorks source and probably not the BSP source so the opportunity to learn at this level through the FRC RC has been taken away. You don’t need to understand anything about electrical engineering to read a micro-controller data sheet and learn from example how to service interrupts and use integer math so you don’t need a 32 bit processor to run PID loops for instance.


Is what you are saying that the split with the old system was mostly in capability while the split for the new system will be financial? From my perspective there will always be a capability split due to the difference in engineer/mentor availability. The teams that were relatively strong with the old system will also be relatively strong with the new system but now, only the well financed teams will be able to buy more than two? control systems.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I can't upload the the documentation because it is copyrighted and is not publically available - at least in any way I could find. You can download your own documentation from Wind River by agreeing to the licensing terms via the 3.6 30-Day Evaluation kit. This is the top link in the list.

The above evaulation kit has the full doc set for VxWorks. Just remember, VxWorks is multiplatform targetted so this is the generic doc set. Some components such as full MMU support may not exist in the cRIO environment. But all in all, the documentation is a place for the software mentors to start.

I'd start with the following
And then move on to:

And a whole lot more...

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I downloaded that too and it should be a great introduction to vxworks and the Wind River Workbench, especially with the simulator.

I'm not sure if Wind River is creating a custom workbench for FIRST, but it would be great if they could get a full version of the workbench to teams before kickoff so we can familiarize ourselves with it. The Eclipse plugin for the workbench seems to be pretty extensive, so even though the code we write with the WPI libraries may be different, just being able to explore the IDE before kickoff would help a lot.

Like dcbrown said the evaluation comes with a lot of docs. There's also some info freely available at their site:
The main product page for the workbench is at http://www.windriver.com/products/workbench/
Here's a good introduction: http://www.windriver.com/products/pr...-Tech-Note.pdf

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Although I will not have a chance to work on the system (I am graduating and moving about 1000 miles away from my team), I feel that this system will be a boon to FIRST and that it opens many doors. Here is what I see from my perspective:

Pros:
-Labview is easy to work with...easier for teams with no programming experienced people to operate
-Much higher processing capabilities
-Possibility for better, faster, and more advanced programs

Cons:
-Big
-Heavy
-May be a bit of a change for people who are already experienced with Microchip microcontrollers

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I feel like people keep missing this:

What is the cost of cRIO? Will this change raise the entry cost for teams?
A No. Due to the investment being made by NI ($10M over 5 years) and NI’s suppliers, FIRST will
provide teams with a more powerful control system without raising the cost to compete. Because
there are many factors that determine the final price of the kit of parts, the exact entry price has
not been determined yet.

While it may be expensive hardware, they are making it available with out raising the costs of entry.

I just unwrapped labview and installed it from this years KOP, looks interesting. As a lead programmer, founder of our team, and soon to be senior, I must look out for the future of the team. While i am an ardent supporter and advocate of ASM and C, LabView has a lot of potential for sustainability, while holding the real world experience that EasyC and what ever that other thing was lack.

As for the all around control system it has a lot of potential, I am peeved that the FPGA will be very limited if not completely lock away from us, I think that would have left us all where we wanted to be with the full spectrum of options.

I am just waiting for the day when our robots have full server racks crunching numbers so hard we dont have to worry about who is going to drive the robot, unfortunately i don't think I will be a team programmer that day, but I sure hope I will be the mentor watching this realized.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Yes, they are giving us one without raising the cost of entry. However, to keep previous robots functioning a veteran team will have to purchase a new control system every year as FIRST will only give us the first one.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

I would not consider that to be a major concern, and based on how they bolded the word HEAVILY my guess is it wont run more then 1k, and how many of them do you need at once. I would figure one for the current robot and one for prototyping with the old one would be enough, the modules are easy to swap. I will reserve my final call to Fall/Early Winter when all this is finalized.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

FYI the announcement video is now up so my guess is the others are soon to follow:
http://media.wpi.edu/News/Events/Rob...nouncement.wmv

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

We usually have four or five robots running at any given time. Keeping that up with the new control system -- even if it's heavily discounted to $1000 -- represents a significant increase in cost to our team. We may gain more processing power, but it will significantly affect how teams are able to reach out to their community to generate interest in FIRST, or to help new teams get their feet wet in the preseason.

Registration fees were raised $1000 to cover costs associated with providing each team a new control system each season. If continuing to provide a new system to teams each is no longer possible, the registration fee should be reasonably lowered again.