NI releasing/designing new controller for FRC

[Steven Sigley]

So the pneumatics will be CAN, and the Power Distribution Panel, is there any way to integrate sensors like encoders into the CAN network without PWM cables in the future?

[Chadfrom308]

What if it is going to be arduino based
probably not, but you can code arduinos in labview

[mman1506]

It's not, you cannot do vision anything on a arduino

[FrankJ]

The NI Booth had a prototype. I almost got a picture of it. In addition to Ethernet, it has client/server USB ports & a high speed Canbus. It is running a dual core processor & a bigger FGPA. Although the guts are based on standard NI products, it is specifically designed for First. It is NI's hope that the programming tools for it will be backwards compatible to the CRIO. It looks to be novice friendly while having expansion opportunities for the teams with the resources to take advantage of them. No comment on rather or not the current CRIO's will be competition legal in 2015. Cost is predicted to be in line with the current CRIO.

A big thanks to National Instruments for continuing to support First in the way they do. I hope we get to Beta test it. (We are a java team)

PS
This is way beyond arduino.

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by Meshbeard

I talked to the guys at the Cross the Road Electronics booth today. I can confirm that they are planning on having two versions of the Talon in the future: a pwm version and a CAN version.

I also took pictures of the informational posters they had out about the new control system (what they were allowed to say about it at least).
Control System Overview: http://i.imgur.com/eA3Bvfu.jpg
Power Distribution: http://i.imgur.com/bWDHpSt.jpg
Pneumatics: http://i.imgur.com/276hmyB.jpg
New things: http://i.imgur.com/YEtaHrp.jpg

I can try to elaborate more if someone asks for particular information.

I'll preface this by saying that I am not a CSE, EE, or embedded engineer. This layout scares me.

Having the most failure prone component (digital sidecar) now built into the robot controller worries me. How often have shorted pins, miswired power leads, and other mistakes caused burned-out sidecars?

I sincerely hope the controller is over-engineered to a level that makes it virtually indestructable. Otherwise teams will be replacing their entire controller when someone shorts a 24V power to a 5V jumper.

[crake]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I sincerely hope the controller is over-engineered to a level that makes it virtually indestructable.

I would say that's not over-engineering - but engineering to spec

[Andy Baker]

This is a heads up from the peanut gallery:

Everyone interested in the new Athena controller system needs to pay attention to crake (aka: Chris Rake) who posted directly above this post. Notice that his team number is "Athena". I can confirm that his focus to make Athena great for the FRC teams is great and I am confident that this will be a wonderful system. Along with Chris, there are many other folks at National Instruments and other supporting companies who are working hard to make this a wonderful system.

I love what I see already, and I am excited to see the full roll out in August.

Sincerely,
Andy B.

[Peter Johnson]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

Having the most failure prone component (digital sidecar) now built into the robot controller worries me. How often have shorted pins, miswired power leads, and other mistakes caused burned-out sidecars?

I sincerely hope the controller is over-engineered to a level that makes it virtually indestructable. Otherwise teams will be replacing their entire controller when someone shorts a 24V power to a 5V jumper.

Was this an issue teams ran into with the pre-2009 IFI controller (which was also fully integrated)? You're absolutely correct that the I/O circuit design needs to have shorting, overvoltage, and inversion protections built in to avoid failures in our swarf-heavy and miswire-prone robots. The digital sidecar has indeed been problematic for a lot of teams (mine included) but I've not heard of a team damaging one of the cRio modules--we had an analog bumper get pretty hot and give incorrect results this year when we shorted the 5V and GND, but after getting rid of the short it worked again. I'm pretty confident that NI knows about these concerns and is capable of designing in appropriate protections for the Athena I/O.

[Meshbeard]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I sincerely hope the controller is over-engineered to a level that makes it virtually indestructable. Otherwise teams will be replacing their entire controller when someone shorts a 24V power to a 5V jumper.

I expect that since the Athena is going to be around the same price as the crio, it should be about as robust as the crio. The digital sidecar is not meant to be put on robots like we use. I think NI realizes that our equipment can take a beating and will probably take that into account.

[connor.worley]

CAN Talons may just get us to make the switch. Cool stuff.

[404'd]

Originally Posted by connor.worley

CAN Talons may just get us to make the switch. Cool stuff.

There was a lot of things that made me like CAN, but the integrity of jaguars made us stray away from them. Having 8 working victors at the end of a season was more appealing than a (literal) pile of dead jaguars.
CAN talons could bring back my interest in CAN, I'm anxious to see what they come up with.

[Meshbeard]

Originally Posted by Steven Sigley

So the pneumatics will be CAN, and the Power Distribution Panel, is there any way to integrate sensors like encoders into the CAN network without PWM cables in the future?

Most of the encoders used on FRC robots are quadrature encoders, which means they have four wires. They're usually four individual wires twisted together or a four wire ribbon cable, they're not really pwm wires. The way the digital sidecar is set up, you need to use three wire connectors, which is really inconvenient, but the new control system might have dedicated encoder inputs, which would be great.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Meshbeard

The digital sidecar is not meant to be put on robots like we use.

I'm not sure I understand this statement. The DSC was made specifically for FRC robots.

[crake]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Along with Chris, there are many other folks at National Instruments and other supporting companies who are working hard to make this a wonderful system.

Thanks Andy - As Ray announced at opening ceremonies this system is a result of collaboration between numerous companies and organizations - all of whom are dedicated to making this the best possible system for this program.

I also have to ask for some forgiveness from the forum. There are a lot of questions, and some of these may have to go unanswered for the time being. But folks won't have to wait for long - August will be here very soon!

[Nate Laverdure]

6mm lugs for the main power terminals on the next-gen PDB. WHY???