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Unread 29-01-2008, 12:18
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Re: IR Jamming from 2 or more remotes - results

The way I can see it, there are two concerns here
1) There may be times when you will not be able to communicate with your robot because of other team's IR.
2) Your communications with your robot might interfere with your alliance's communications

A solution to #1 is to make sure that you don't have any time-dependent routines among your 4 hybrid modes. For example, rather than having "drive forward" as a response to a given button press, have "drive forward 5m". Rather than "turn left", have "turn left 90 degrees". This way, a sudden loss of your ability to communicate will not doom your robot in hybrid mode, it'll just mean you will start your next command a little later once the interference clears.

A solution to #2 is probably more difficult. Perhaps you could make an IR 'gun', with a long IR-absorbent tube in front of your remote's IR emitter, to increase your aiming accuracy. On the robot, mount a little visible-light LED that lights up to confirm reception of the command so you know when you 'hit'. Another solution would be to simply co-operate with your alliance partners so that only one of your is signalling at a given time.

Quote:
FYI, I believe your alliance may CHOOSE which end of the field your RoboCoach will be stationed at, meaning you could have opponent RoboCoaches beaming IR commands right beside you.
The opponents may be beside you, but the lane divider will be between them and your robots at the start. Someone should check if the material the lane divider is made of is opaque to IR transmissions. If it is, then the only interference your robots will deal with at the beginning of hybrid mode will be from your alliance partners.
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