20-05-2007, 13:12
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Electrical Engineer / Computer Geek
AKA: Eldarion Telcontar
no team (Teamless Orphan)
Team Role: Alumni
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Rookie Year: 2005
Location: Númenor
Posts: 558
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Re: New Robot Control System!
Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianBSL
As far as the cost of software - the synthesis tools (ISE webpack) and simple simulation tools (the free ModelSim) are free. However, the EDK - which lets you setup the microprocessor inside the FPGA (includes the logic for the MicroBlaze and the stuff to setup the PowerPC) is expensive ($1000). I think that would be a necessary part of any FPGA system for a robot controller, as writing your autonomous in Verilog or VHDL would just be a pain, not to mention the synthesis time, whereas 64+ megs of DDR memory and plenty of flash memory with an Eclipse SDK and gcc and g++ would be a welcomed change. I've had 20+ min synthesis times on a Virtex 2 Pro project I was working on, which I simply don't think will work for FIRST applications.
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I agree with the need for an embedded microcontroller. I wonder if any of the open-source ones listed on this page might do? http://www.opencores.org/browse.cgi/by_category
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