ANNOUNCING: navX MXP Robotics Navigation Sensor

[slibert]

Press Release - January 2, 2015
KauaiLabs, Inc. announces the navX MXP Robotics Navigation Sensor

• 9-Axis Sensor (Gyro / Accelerometer / Magnetometer)
• Intelligent Motion Processor
• RoboRIO Expansion I/O

Supercharge your robot: Field-oriented drive, auto-balancing, collision detection, motion detection, auto-rotate-to-angle, and more…

Expand your RoboRIO: 10 Digital I/Os (GPIO / PWM / Quad Encoders), 4 Analog Inputs, 2 Analog Outputs, and TTL UART / I2C / SPI ports.

Plug-n-Play: easily installed via RoboRIO’s MXP Expansion connector or USB port.

Open Source: firmware source code, board schematics/layout & bill of materials available online.

Easy-to-integrate: C++, Java and LabView libraries and sample application code simplify integration.

Backwards-compatible: existing nav6 users can upgrade easily.

********

In late 2013, Kauailabs released the nav6 Open Source Inertial Measurement Unit, providing high-accuracy measures of pose (yaw/pitch/roll), with minimal yaw drift of ~1 degree per minute - performance far exceeding the analog gyro included in the FRC Kit of Parts. nav6 was used by several teams at the 2014 FIRST Championships for features including field-oriented drive.

Now, Kauailabs announces the navX MXP Robotics Navigation Sensor, which takes nav6 technology to the next level in two significant ways.

First, navX MXP was designed to use the RoboRIO MXP Expansion Connector - enabling plug-n-play installation on the National Instruments RoboRIO, and adding digital, analog I/O and UART / SPI / I2C port expansion.

Second, navX MXP features a 32-bit ARM processor, the new Invensense MPU-9250 sensor system-on-chip, and software algorithms which take nav6 technology to the next level, including enhanced sensor calibration and algorithms which fuse gyro, accelerometer and magnetometer data into a “9-axis heading”. The “9-axis heading” is enabled by magnetometer calibration tools (available online at no cost) and magnetometer disturbance detection and data fusion algorithms. This capability is known within the aerospace industry as an “Attitude/Heading Reference System” (AHRS). Kauailabs brings this high-tech AHRS capability to FIRST FRC teams - to use, learn and explore. navX MXP is a key component of Kauailabs’ ongoing efforts to make state-of-the-art navigation technologies used in autonomous vehicles (e.g., the Google Car) available to robotics students and enthusiasts as low-cost, open-source products.

navX MXP will be available for puchase online a few days after the 2015 FIRST FRC build season kickoff at AndyMark and Kauailabs. MSRP is $99.

More details available in the navX MXP datasheet and at https://code.google.com/p/navx.

[mman1506]

Looks great! I really love the MXP breakout too, no screw terminals or PCB breadboards just an extension of what's on the RoboRIO itself.

[Amar Shah]

This looks really cool. I wonder if I can convince my team to buy one.

[Conor Ryan]

This is the coolest Control System Add On ever. You can do so much with it, all without the danger of overloading the main CPU.

Looking in the Wiki here are the list of examples:

• Field-oriented Drive

• Automatic Balancing

• Rotating to a given Angle

• Motion/No-Motion Detection

That is pretty impressive, I can't wait to see what some teams can do with this.


Any videos of it in action?

[slibert]

Originally Posted by Conor Ryan

This is the coolest Control System Add On ever. You can do so much with it, all without the danger of overloading the main CPU.

Looking in the Wiki here are the list of examples:

• Field-oriented Drive

• Automatic Balancing

• Rotating to a given Angle

• Motion/No-Motion Detection

That is pretty impressive, I can't wait to see what some teams can do with this.


Any videos of it in action?

Here's a video recently posted by the lead technical mentor of team 246, showing how they used the nav6 to implement field oriented drive. The navX is based on the same technology:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...highlight=nav6

It's mentioned at about 5:30 and 10:30 into the video referenced in this post.

[Mr. Lim]

Just put in our order for one.

Team is excited to have a proper IMU on our robot this year!

Thanks, and good luck with the product!

[SpeedFreed]

I spent the large portion of my summer working with the Nav6 by Kauai Labs, and it was, by far, the easiest (and most accurate) gyro I had ever worked with. Ever. I never got around to using the other degrees (pitch, roll, linear acceleration), but it was worth it alone for just the yaw measurement, and it's easy integration into FOD. But that was just an offseason project, who knows what else tomorrow's challenge might allow us to do with it?

Needless to say, I already ordered one of the navXs, and you can be sure it will be on our robot next year.

[craigboez]

Because this is an "active" roboRIO expansion module, my understanding is that it needs explicit FRC approval before you can use it on your robot. Does the navX have this approval?

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by craigboez

Because this is an "active" roboRIO expansion module, my understanding is that it needs explicit FRC approval before you can use it on your robot.

It only needs approval if you plug in a motor controller or servo to it.

[craigboez]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

It only needs approval if you plug in a motor controller or servo to it.

Thanks Joe. That would explain the lack of PWM outputs.

[slibert]

Originally Posted by craigboez

Thanks Joe. That would explain the lack of PWM outputs.

The navX does support PWM/Quad Encoders as well as standard GPIO. These pins are direct pass-throughs from the MXP Connector, so whatever RoboRIO drives out those pins is routed to the navx MXP Digital I/O connectors.

Any announcement regarding legality as an active device can only come from FIRST, who has indicated that all approved devices will be listed in this year's game manual, to be released tomorrow.

[craigboez]

Are there any restrictions or recommendations on how to mount the roboRIO? Is vertical ok?

[Oblarg]

This looks like it could be very useful - I know 449 has been wanting to do gyro integration for a long time but has not made much progress. This looks to be basically plug-and-play, and should allow field-oriented control to a lot of teams that couldn't before.

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by craigboez

Are there any restrictions or recommendations on how to mount the roboRIO? Is vertical ok?

I can't speak for the orientation requirements of this board, but you could always use a cable to relocated it off of the roborio.

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-2997.htm

[Ben Wolsieffer]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

I can't speak for the orientation requirements of this board, but you could always use a cable to relocated it off of the roborio.

http://www.andymark.com/product-p/am-2997.htm

It also looks like it can be connected over USB, which would make it even easier to mount it away from the roboRIO.