2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

As requested by Greg McKaskle, let's start a wishlist of features that we'd like to see in the new controller.

I'll start:
-encoder counting in the FPGA for a fixed/flexible number of encoders

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

To add to that:

-Built in gyro support, with oversampling, noice reduction, integration, and all that jazz done on the FPGA level.

-Similarly, the ability to use similar tools (oversampling and other noise reduction techniques) on sensors that don't require intgration (such as pots, absolute magnetic encoders, and analog rangefinders).

-Again, I'm not sure if this is FPGA level stuff, but the ability to write out some PWMs faster than others (just like we were able to do with pwms 13-16 on the IFI control system). This could be useful to run tight and powerful control loops, particularly on the drive train.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

On thing I think is likely is that this control system will be running a faster loop than the IFI one. So I don't think multirate PWMs will be as necessary. My additions to the wishlist (assuming FPGA lockout):

- Provisions for interrupt-on-change like functionality on a subset of the digital inputs.
- something similar to the Capture functionality on a CCP port to easily measure pulse widths.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

I just copied over my post from another thread.

Greg,

Thank you for you help and insights with this new control system. Here is my wish list:

1.) could someone please give us the name of the Project Head at both FIRST and NI. I am a member of the Colorado FIRST planning committee, president of Colorado School of Mines Robotics Club and a long time FRC mentor. We have a great relationship with our Regional NI sales office and have all the resources to do a mentor workshop on the new control system, but we need to know more about certain things (like access to the Digital Sidecar) so we are able to do such a workshop. Myself and many other are more than willing to sign a NDA. It is frustrating to say the least of the politics inside of NI and FIRST are cutting good people off at the knees. BTW I called FIRST on Monday (4/21) and they told me NI had nothing to do with the new control system, even after the announcement. go figure

2.) Encoder interfaces galore - I would love to see 8-10 encoder interfaces. It would be really nice if some of the encoder interfaces had upper and lower limit switch support. In our lab we setup 9403 channels as follows:

8 x RC-PWM outputs
8 x quadture encoder inputs (channels 0-7)
4 x upper and lower limit switches (mapped to channels 4-7)

Currently in our 2008 bot we used 6 encoders (4 channels had upper/lower limit switches), but that could of easily been 8 if we chose to use a Mecanum drive.

3.) More powerful sensors like gyros, accelerometer, ultra-sonics, laser range finders moved onto a communications bus (I2C, SPI or CAN). This will reduce pin count and if implemented correctly will allow for self diagnostics.

Now Moving on to the long term wish list:

4.) Make a Radio modem cRIO module. - if implemented correctly inside of VxWorks it could be used to provide the supervisory control that FIRST needs while still granting us access full access to the FPGA

5.) Migrate to using a cRIO module for motor control (NI 9505?)

6.) let us use the NI 1742 - I love this thing!

7.) Larger cRIO Chassis maybe 12/16 Slot

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

I'm not sure exactly how to word this, but I'll give it a try

1) Have the FPGA interface for the encoders that provides the position and the velocity that the sensor is spinning at.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

One of the things I'm curious about is what sensors teams are interested in using. Specifically part numbers / data sheets / etc. Don't limit your wishes based on the interface to the sensor... this is a wish-list, right?

I know there are several I2C sensors our team is interested in. Magnetometers are interesting. Some of the gyros and accelerometers have pulse-width or I2C interfaces, instead of analog. Some temperature sensors are 1-wire (Dallas Semi) interfaced. I'm sure you guys have many.

Thanks,
-Joe

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

The more that I think about various sensors, I would really like to see more rs-232/485 ports on the controller

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

Well, I'd really like to have a DWIM programming interface (Do What I Mean) as opposed to our current "Do What I Say" system. That would really make life easier, and allow our programming team to make full use of that half-hour period they get to work on the "finished" robot before it goes in the crate! :)

As far as sensors... the Banebots Encoders are nice... so I echo the requst for multiple quadrature encoder support in hardware. We've run up to four encoders at a time... although we used Banebots decoder board to simplify the inputs, it would still be nice to just have a plug'n'play hookup for multiple encoders. The maxbotix sonars are great, and while they work great with their easy-to-use analog interface they have a couple other modes as well that could be supported.

But my biggest request is that the whole system be tested on a very large scale (perhaps an off-season event) in the early autumn so that there is time to work out any bugs that show up when multiple systems run conncurrently in a public environment. We typically compete in Portland (a first weekend regional) and really hope we aren't serving as one of the first large-scale public testbeds for the new system.

Jason

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

Now that the controller can do I2C similar to the NXT, I would like to see drivers on the cRio for all Lego NXT sensor products.

Mindsensors - http://www.mindsensors.com/
Hitechnic - http://www.hitechnic.com/

In terms of interfaces, here is my priority list,
1. I2C
2. Serial Ports
3. Quadrature Encoders
4. Analog
5. SPI

Eventually having more interfaces for SparkFun's huge product line would be nice as well,
http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/cat...hp?cPath=23_85 an IMU would make life so much easier

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

Your wish is granted!

Well for one RS-232 port, at any rate. Certainly better than none, and there are RS-232 and RS-485 expansion modules available that we might get to use in the future.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

This is probably more a function of the master control routines, rather than a user function, but I'd like to see more comprehensive diagnostics indications on the robot and OI. For example, on the robot: a status display indicating go/no-go status of the robot control hardware, digital sidecar, battery charge level and wireless connectivity. On the driver control OI: display the OI & robot status, field control state (enabled/disabled, autonomous/teleoperation, e-stop), plus wireless status and packet loss, etc. for diagnosing robot communications issues.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

I would like to be able to interface one of these to the bot.

http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/R93-SRF04.html

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

gryo w/drift compensation and programmable op-amp gain (similar to those used on model helicopters like ICG400).

sensorless motor feedback using back emf measurement sync'd with pwm cycle (i.e. automatically interrupt pwm setting, substituting neutral for a couple of cycles, but sync'd with start of pulse train). programmable op-amp gain would be a bonus. Should be available on any pwm output, but would require A/D channel to get the measurement. Would need sync signal on when to acquire analog sample.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

I would like to see the LabView PID toolkit included in the KOP.

Re: 2009 Control System Feature Wishlist
 

Design the entire system so it is easy (and inexpensive) for off season events and individual teams to build their own field controller system, using nothing more than a laptop, a wireless router and an NI USB 6008 or 6009 multifunction IO module or two (ie COTS materials).

Field controller software would be an open source download. Install it and go. Ideally, this would be a Labview App.

This would include built-in monitoring and diagnostics, of course.

With 1500 teams testing it out for 6 weeks we might get a lot of valuable feedback prior to the events themselves ...