New Control System Wireless Bridge Power?

[Greg Marra]

Does anyone know how the new control system powers the 802.11n wireless link onboard to talk back to the field? Brad Miller said it was the same sort of wireless bridge that you would use to connect your XBox to your wireless router, and I know lots of the demo bots had regular wireless routers.

Is there some sort of 12V DC -> 120V AC conversion going on somewhere on the robot, or are these being powered by DC current? Can anyone provide me with more information? I am looking into DC-powered 802.11n devices, and figured copying what FIRST settled on might be a good path

Thanks!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Greg Marra

Is there some sort of 12V DC -> 120V AC conversion going on somewhere on the robot, or are these being powered by DC current?

This isn't based on specific information from FIRST or NI, but every 802.11 device I'm familiar with operates on low-voltage DC natively. I seriously doubt there would be any reason to convert to 120 V AC, just so that the stock transformer/switching supply could be used. More likely, we'll see a wire with a barrel plug on the device end, and some generic terminals on the supply end.

There might be a 12 V DC to 5 V DC (for example) conversion somewhere, but the details of something like that would depend on FIRST's implementation. (That's pretty trivial, anyway.)

[Joe Ross]

According to the power distribution board page, the PD board provides 5v power for the access point.

[Greg Marra]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

This isn't based on specific information from FIRST or NI, but every 802.11 device I'm familiar with operates on low-voltage DC natively. I seriously doubt there would be any reason to convert to 120 V AC, just so that the stock transformer/switching supply could be used.

You are so right. I can't think why that escaped my mind. Why bother making 120V AC so I can use the wall wart to get it back to DC.

Good call.