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...