Dashboard communication ports

[sjspry]

Originally Posted by John Heden

A literal interpretation of R75 where the driver is the only tool to collated driver/operator inputs seems to preclude ANY such dashboard user interaction (setup, teleoperated, etc.) but could allow for automated control from algorithms in the driver station as long as the data did not derive from the operator/driver inputs. Allowing a powerful laptop to do the vision processing and returning the results via this dashboard UDP port seems like a valid rule interpretation but not the likely intention. I’m still very curious as to some further rule info detailing on this UDP 1130 reference and some further specifics on what is/is not allowed. This “dashboard to robot” communications remains a tad ambiguous until we have a official response. It was very easy to get the basic UDP receiver operational on both the dashboard and the robot and would happily share this. If only we knew what we could do with it….

You're reading too far into this. From what I remember (I can't look up the rules right now), the mention of those port numbers sounds like (and was likely intended to be) a preventative measure, as in, "don't use these as they're being used already". They probably don't intend for you to reverse engineer the dashboard protocol or send your own information on these ports.

Regardless, this rule has nothing to do with the driver station. I myself am rather confused as to why they insist on all human-driven input going through their software, as it would already be possible under the rules to modify the cRIO to negate any "safety" benefits from this.

And I noticed the computer-driven control exception myself. I moved image processing to my driver station as I wished to write my own, and I believe someone else was going to do much the same thing so they could use OpenCV, something more featured than the NIVision on the cRIO.


Remember the Dashboard and the Driver Station are completely separate. The Dashboard NEVER sends back information, while the Driver Station is the one to initiate everything as far as rounds/teleop/autonomous goes, therefore the interpretation of "all human input must go through the Driver Station" is by far the most valid interpretation.