Robots sharing information

[dave1027]

To get the topic back on track, let me refocus the conversation with a question (or two): wouldn't it be great to have the x,y coordinates and heading of each robot reported globally for all robots to access? Perhaps with 3 or 4 additional user definable bytes

Transmitting an additional 10-16 bytes per robot (perhaps 10 times a second) would likely not bring down the FMS. Forget about trying to share video (I doubt that would be very productive anyway)

Would you use them?

[yash101]

Originally Posted by techhelpbb

For a few years I've been joking with Team 11 when we split into Team 11/193 that if we split again we can own a whole side of the field.

Then integrate light based communications into all 3 robots and make them electronically cooperative. If it wasn't for some of the rules maybe make them join into a bigger robot after the match started.

The trick is not really finding a way to communicate in a way FIRST might approve and may not even realize you have been doing. The trick is getting everyone involved on the same page to leverage it. Any team with a camera and a light source right now could strobe that light source and read that with the camera off the retro-reflective tape allowing the robots to communicate. FIRST already approves the cameras and the light sources. So really what can they do about this in the absence of a new rule?

You could actually code this at the competition and probably wire it up if you can get all the people involved to cooperate.

Building on, you could use a wide-range, moderate-power infrared LED/sensor with a coprocessor. You could possibly create some sort of PPtP tunnel over this if treated like a serial port!

Two robots:

PHP Code:

} >=====[PPTP]======> ]
[ <=====[PPTP]======< {

Robot 1:        Robot 2:
Tx } >=======[PPTP]======> ] Rx
Rx [ <=======[PPTP]======< ] Tx 


Basically, you can treat this like an opto-isolator. This can potentially give a very high speed with very low latency. However, I would use some modulation, say 100kHz to filter out the noise! Make sure that is much higher than the baud you want to use!