Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

WindRiver Workbench is being provided as a development environment. Wind River is the company that produces vxWorks, the realtime OS that is running on the new controller. I know that workbench works on multiple hosts (Unix, Linux, Windows). It remains to be seen exactly what sort of support we get for this from Wind River, but I've asked my contacts there to look into it.

It would be really cool if we get access to Wind River tools beyond the IDE for compilation. With just the compilation support, we would get static code analysis, and incremental build support. Windriver has additional tools for memory leak detection, code profiling, and real time diagnostics.

Check out WindRiver.com for info about what might be possible. In particular the scope tools (Memscope, Profilescope, Stethoscope).

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

You do realize that EVERYONE just found out exactly what this thing is today? Wait for time to pass until manuals are printed and sent out or links to the product manuals. You could always visit NI and read about the overall platform.

-Mike AA

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

the old one aesthetically looked sexier, and i got it tattooed on me, im not getting any new control sysytem tattoos any time soon :p but im glad we are moving in the fast lane.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Ouch! OK, I surrender. You win the award for most commitment to the IFI control system. :eek:

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

From the FAQ from http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/csoverview.html :

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

the only thing that worries me os that, if new RC's dont get shipped out before kickoff for teams to learn, there's gonna be a lot of powerhouse teams really lagging behind.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

For the life of me, I swore I saw that there will be a 2 hour training session for the new control system at 5pm today down in Atlanta. I can't remember where I saw this. Am I hallucinating, or does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

More importantly, is this going to be webcast? Or available online at a later date?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Yes, I do realize that. I just wanted to express my questions/concerns, and I wanted to know how everyone else thinks this goes together. I didn't expect a definitive answer from anyone, except if that person has some knowledge of how the cRIO works, say, a person affiliated with NI or someone who worked with the demo robots this morning.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

While I'd love to see them using 802.11a, I've never seen a reference to 802.11a that involved 11 non-overlapping channels. IIRC it's 8 in North America and 4 in Asia, at least for legal operations. I guess we'll know soon enough.

I do hope they are not intending to operate AP's in the robots and that these boxes will be client side bridges.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Chasing down the wires in this picuture: http://first.wpi.edu/FRC/cstechnical.html

It would appear that the victors are connected to the Sidecar

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Yeah, I wondered about that, too. This picture indicates an AP.

Can anyone who is in Atlanta now and has seen the demonstrations confirm that?

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

Initial impressions....

I like the power and the ability to do floating point and wireless downloading. The ability to realtime monitor everything without printf's will make debugging much easier as quicker as well and that will allow for a quicker development cycle. That power and ease is coming at an expense, though.

It comes in at just over 5+ pounds for just the cRio, not including the bumpers and digital sidecar. I think people are going to be surprised when they actually get this thing in their hands and realize they just lost a couple pounds of potential robot compared to the old system.

System placement is likely to be more difficult as well. With the slim form factor of the existing equipment, I've made the comment several times to the mechanical team that they can do anything they need to do and we'll work around it - not so anymore.

Those are all small gripes though - because the system looks pretty awesome. My biggest worry is the software we're going to start out with. If we don't have ready-made function blocks for the wiz-bang "auton recording" and image recognition - along with functions like the gyroscope, quadrature encoders, etc, many teams are going to have a very very difficult time. I'd wager 1/2 the teams couldn't do what they do now without Kevin or other's code to help them. The lack of time with a C IDE is going to hurt a lot of teams.

If you haven't done Labview before, it's a total shift in thinking when you program. I'm not sure I like being semi-locked into the environment. IF that is what ends up happening.

The teams who can afford to pony up the $$'s for the extra system for a practice bot are going to be hugely ahead of the curve next year. The handful that can pony up cash for a system right now are going to be downright scary.

So - I'm excited about the potential, but nervous about potentially being locked into a development environment that I've never been particularly fond of. I wonder - how many school have classes with Labview.....

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

From the tech specs on the sidecar it appears that it provides the pwm drivers and power for the PWM's (when connected to servos). It looks like it may also have 8 relay drivers and 14 TTL GPIO's. In other words, its basically most the present controller except for the $15 PIC.

The SPI which is marked (SPI/I2C) is a mystery. Hopefully this goes to a hardware based SPI and I2C controllers so there can be some hope of $50 instead of $500 sensors.

It's very nice to see friction lock connectors on the PWM. Too bad this didn't extend to the other I/O's. It's for 2009 afterall, hotglue shouldn't be required to keep wires from falling out ;)

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

You're not crazy. The two hour training session (for mentors) was announced in an email blast from FIRST, linked in another thread.

Re: NEW 2009 Control System Released
 

this should be a plug in module, not an add-on....I wonder if they're working on it? The slideshow seems to indicate that the sidecar is a prototype...we can hope...