Before I continue to seemingly defend the estop, let me just say that I'm not its biggest fan either. I know how the conversation goes because these objections are familiar somehow. But seeing as how it can't defend itself, I'll give the answers I have, perhaps simply to hone your argument to the point where it will all make sense.
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So then next question is why does the field require this? 10 years ago, it didn't.
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I'm not sure this holds water. For instance, I never rode in a car seat growing up. In fact I spent my fair share of time in the bed of a pickup or in the cab of a tractor, but apparently today's cars are incapable of transporting children below the age of 14 without them sitting on something that costs $100 or more and is a royal pain to install. Standards for safety change over time.
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A much more ideal case would have been for us to be able to hit the e-stop before the robot hit the wall, and un-estop after autonomous ..
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Somehow, I don't think they will change the rules to let teams step forward during auto to touch stuff, and then continue playing the game as if nothing happened.
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A piece of industrial equipment would also do something something additional, such as shut off power.
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If the robot had a smart PD, I wouldn't be surprised if it did kill some power. The next best thing is to have the most trusted piece of the system, the FPGA, withhold all enables and signals.
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... it's hard to hit the disable key in a jiffy if you aren't hovering over it
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Fortunately, the key stuff is done with DirectInput, like video games are. It works pretty well with key smashes, meaning that if you hit other keys that include the right key, it usually works anyway.
It sounds like the primary issue is that the estop is inconvenient. I understand and don't even disagree, but I think the requirement is to show that the system is safer or at least no less safe without the estop.
Greg McKaskle