2015 driver station questions

[FrankJ]

I know the definitive answer might have to wait for kick off, but no harm in asking.

Can the 2015 driver station be used with the pre 2015 robots?

Can the 2014 driver station coexist on the same computer as the 2015 DS. We use the IO page on some the robots and I understand that it will be gone on 2015 DS.

The 2015 system uses DHCP & mDNS rather than fixed ip addresses. Where the DHCP going to live when connected to FMS? Will the 2015 system have the option of fixed addresses so it will work with the existing FMS systems.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

I know the definitive answer might have to wait for kick off, but no harm in asking.

Can the 2015 driver station be used with the pre 2015 robots?

Can the 2014 driver station coexist on the same computer as the 2015 DS. We use the IO page on some the robots and I understand that it will be gone on 2015 DS.

The 2015 system uses DHCP & mDNS rather than fixed ip addresses. Where the DHCP going to live when connected to FMS? Will the 2015 system have the option of fixed addresses so it will work with the existing FMS systems.

Lots of yes's.

You might want to rename the older Driver Station before installing the new one, so that you keep track of which is which.
That also avoids the possibility of overwriting the old DS with the new DS.

Any events using FMS Lite will have to use the '09-'14 communications protocol and the 2015 Driver Station will have an option to switch to the older protocol, although it will default to the new 2015 protocol whenever it first starts up.

The use of DHCP will depend on how your home router or DLink is setup, but static IPs are always accepted.
If using the new DS without DHCP, you will have to set the laptop static IP by hand.
mDNS will not work on older cRIO robots, so they keep their static IPs

[Greg McKaskle]

Just to add a bit. Older cRIOs that are four slots can be updated to newer SW image and will actually start using the new protocol. The other option is to use old tools and old DS.

Dashboard protocol also changed. The new DS speaks both, old DS will only work with old dashboards.

Greg McKaskle

[FrankJ]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

...
The use of DHCP will depend on how your home router or DLink is setup, but static IPs are always accepted.

Thanks for the response I was asking more of when it is connected to the FMS. The current IP & subnet scheme keeps the CRIOs from seeing other teams driver stations. That will change if they have a common DHCP. Of course with the official field's smart switches & separate wifi SSIDs, that is not an issue. Not the necessarily the case with practice fields. We have own own version of FMS & eventually will want to update to the 2015 standard.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

Just to add a bit. Older cRIOs that are four slots can be updated to newer SW image and will actually start using the new protocol.

For LabVIEW only.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

For LabVIEW only.

Is this confirmed?

It would be nice to allow teams to run cRIO driven practice bots during off-season events next summer.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by FrankJ

The current IP & subnet scheme keeps the CRIOs from seeing other teams driver stations. That will change if they have a common DHCP.

I don't think that is true. Each team is on a separate virtual LAN.

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

I don't think that is true. Each team is on a separate virtual LAN.

I think he is talking about having multiple robots connected to a regular router for off-season events / practices. When teams use the 10.xx.xx.2 and 255.255.255.0 scheme they can't talk to other cRIOs.

[Greg McKaskle]

Sorry for the confusion my short post may have caused. I believe the deeper details are that the libraries for Java and C++ may not be updated to be able to call into the new FRC_Communications, but LabVIEW has been.

Essentially, this means that all languages can leave the cRIO at the old image and use the old tools (programming and DS). LabVIEW teams may update the cRIO and use the new tools.

I believe some work is still underway to see if Java and C++ can be updated easily.

So, either way, you can have a practice bot. The difference is in the consistency of the tools and libraries used to program them.

Greg McKaskle

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

So, either way, you can have a practice bot. The difference is in the consistency of the tools and libraries used to program them.

Greg McKaskle

I guess my hope is that teams will be able to run Java/C++ cRIO robots on the 2015 FMS. That way it's easier for teams that don't have spare RoboRIOs to run practice robots. It will be much harder to fill out some of our smaller Off-season events with out practice robots.

[Greg McKaskle]

So it sounds like you may end up with 2014 libraries and FRC_Comms running on a 2015 field, right?

In that case, the missing link would be a 2015 DS that uses the 2014 robot comms and the 2015 FMS comms. That combo exists, but it isn't the default and isn't well tested.

Greg McKaskle

[AllenGregoryIV]

Originally Posted by Greg McKaskle

So it sounds like you may end up with 2014 libraries and FRC_Comms running on a 2015 field, right?

In that case, the missing link would be a 2015 DS that uses the 2014 robot comms and the 2015 FMS comms. That combo exists, but it isn't the default and isn't well tested.

Greg McKaskle

That sounds about right. If that could exist (be tested) I think that would help teams during the off season.

[lriddick]

i just want to make sure that this is answered clearly
1) will all of the old crio's work with the new drive station.
2) can you flash the old crio's with the new software.

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by lriddick

i just want to make sure that this is answered clearly
1) will all of the old crio's work with the new drive station.
2) can you flash the old crio's with the new software.

I believe that the 4-slot crios will still be supported but NOT the really old 8-slot crios

[nickmcski]

I dont know if the 4 slot will work with the DS but in the rules (R45)

ROBOTS must be controlled via one (1) programmable National Instruments roboRIO (P/N: am3000), with image version
FRC_2015_v23 and firmware 2.1.0f3.