Control System Design Contest Proposal

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by Matt Krass

I agree, Wi-Fi has too much overhead in general for this setup, including the time for the router and everything to start up, connect together... etc. I'd really actually like to see an 802.15.4 based system, but I'm not sure it has the bandwidth for the full video streaming everyone is spoiled by now (In my day we didn't have streaming video, we drove our robots with our eyes! ) but something could almost certainly be worked out. Maybe there are Wi-Fi based solutions that are simply faster and more streamlined?

My test robot runs DD-WRT. Hack the routers, streamline the protocol or just run UDP if you don't want the overhead of TCP/IP. So what if it ends up being 802.11ish...that's just a few million sources of interference you don't need to bother with. Besides there's no rule you have to transmit IP at all, or even this sort of traffic at any level in that particular range. Course eventually you'll get the FCC's attention if you go too crazy, but that sort of stuff shouldn't need to happen for what you ask.

Just put down the cantenna. You won't be needing that: http://www.instructables.com/id/WiFi...thout-pigtail/

[Matt Krass]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

My test robot runs DD-WRT. Hack the routers, streamline the protocol or just run UDP if you don't want the overhead of TCP/IP. So what if it ends up being 802.11ish...that's just a few million sources of interference you don't need to bother with. Besides there's no rule you have to transmit IP at all, or even this sort of traffic at any level in that particular range. Course eventually you'll get the FCC's attention if you go too crazy, but that sort of stuff shouldn't need to happen for what you ask.

Given the (very) real-time nature of what we're dealing with, UDP is probably best. I mean really, if the robot loses a packet, by the time it figures it out, the data is ancient history. I'd retain TCP for important things like software downloads and such, where losing data is actually quite bad.

I suppose, Wi-Fi itself isn't really the problem, but more the actual radio hardware setup we have now, so that could probably be improved on without being replaced entirely.

Matt