Labview and the IFI hardware

[ajlapp]

Did anyone successfuly mate the labview software supplied in the kit with the IFI hardware?

We used it to do camera work, but did anyone integrate it into an actual data collection system that provided useful feedback about the motors, the power system and the sensors on their bot?

We're interested in working with the system and getting students involved, but I'm concerned about cost and what the limitations of trying to implement such a system might be.

Any feedback would be great.

[Kevin Sevcik]

Just FYI, it's nigh unto impossible to use the NI software itself to get useful data about the motors. You can only get data about things you can set or read via the IFI controller. It could be useful for waypoint plotting and navigation stuff if you sent it data from encoders, I suppose. Or setting up a dashboard program a little more quickly than you could code a program using C++/VB/whatever. The point being you could do the same sort of stuff with standard languages given a bit more time.

I think the real interesting stuff to be done with the NI software was to be done by the 36 pilot teams that recieved DAQ hardware to use with labview. Modelling motors and a host of other useful things that could have been shared with the rest of the FIRST community. Sadly, as far as I can tell, the only interesting thing to come out of those teams was a program to measure ball speed.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by ajlapp

We used it to do camera work, but did anyone integrate it into an actual data collection system that provided useful feedback about the motors, the power system and the sensors on their bot?

We're interested in working with the system and getting students involved, but I'm concerned about cost and what the limitations of trying to implement such a system might be.

I could tell you how much it cost us, but then I'd have to kill you. No, seriously, we've actually spent this summer and a lot of money and worked with Worchester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) to develop a round-1 LabVIEW-based robot analysis and simulation toolkit that allows you to directly talk with the IFI controller. Of course you need our USB-DAQ device for digital I/O and analog I/O, but for those interested in using this software we do plan on having an extended pilot program where those involved get the required hardware for free.

The key benefits of the system will be for bench-testing code on the IFI controller almost from day 1 of the competition. Model your robot with some simple blocks, add in some logic to further model the operational characteristics of the robot, and start developing/testing your C/EasyC code on the IFI controller, all without having a physical robot. What I want is to ultimately make it so that the programming is actually done before the robot is finished. Imagine that!

But alas, I am getting ahead of myself. Hopefully in the next month or so we'll make the details available.

-Danny

[chris31]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

What I want is to ultimately make it so that the programming is actually done before the robot is finished. Imagine that!

Thats crazy! and I love it! I hate the fact that the mechanical people take till the last minuite to finish things and then expect the programmers to do it all in a short amount of time.