Arduino Leonardo ++ Driver Station Output

[wt200999]

Originally Posted by jman4747

I think the issue is there really isn't an obvious way to have the robot talk to a device connected to the computer.

The intent with the new driverstation is to support HID gamepads as the 'obvious' way to communicate from the robot to the driver station, and a HID compatible microcontroller or a gamepad can be used to get custom input/output. This year's WPILib API has functions to set outputs to the driver station which is communicated directly to the joystick.

The HID compatible Arduinos, like the Leonardo++, will work for inputs by default, however the libraries do not have support for HID outputs, meaning out of the box you would not be able to set indicator LEDs. The underlying software would need to be modified to add this support.

The LaunchPad in the kit can be loaded with prebuilt binaries to support input and outputs out of the box. So you can connect it to the driver station and hook both buttons and indicator LEDs to the board, and use the WPILib API to turn on/off the LEDs. The only downside is that if you want to edit the code the only option is the full eclipse based Code Composer. The Arduino forked environment for the LaunchPad (Energia) doesn't work for HID.

Originally Posted by jman4747

I wonder if NI VISA would recognize a USB to RS-232 converter as a com port. If it did you could send strings to the device using the smart dash based on values you get of the from the robot.

VISA will recognize the USB to RS-232 converter properly so this approach would work. You just need to be careful with enumerating the correct port (and make sure the Smart Dashboard ports aren't blocked at the event).

[billbo911]

Originally Posted by wt200999

The intent with the new driverstation is to support HID gamepads as the 'obvious' way to communicate from the robot to the driver station, and a HID compatible microcontroller or a gamepad can be used to get custom input/output. This year's WPILib API has functions to set outputs to the driver station which is communicated directly to the joystick.

The HID compatible Arduinos, like the Leonardo++, will work for inputs by default, however the libraries do not have support for HID outputs, meaning out of the box you would not be able to set indicator LEDs. The underlying software would need to be modified to add this support.

The LaunchPad in the kit can be loaded with prebuilt binaries to support input and outputs out of the box. So you can connect it to the driver station and hook both buttons and indicator LEDs to the board, and use the WPILib API to turn on/off the LEDs. The only downside is that if you want to edit the code the only option is the full eclipse based Code Composer. The Arduino forked environment for the LaunchPad (Energia) doesn't work for HID. ....

I set the text to bold that I wanted to make sure wasn't missed.

This is how we created our drives station "Button Box" this year.
The Launchpad has 3 different possible configurations right from the KOP.
The differences in the 3 configurations are based on how many inputs vs. outputs that are available. The combinations of I/O are: 11/11, 16/6, 20/2.
All 3 combinations also have 8 analog inputs.

As an example, we started out needing 18 inputs (later refined to only 14) from our button box. So, the configuration we chose was 20/2.
We the used the 2 outputs to interface to a Arduino Nano inside the button box to control a string of 60 WS2812 LEDs.

While the robot is disabled, output 1 and 2 remain low. This tells the Adruino to run a demo loop that just cycles through a variety of lighting patterns.
Once the robot goes enabled, output 1 goes high. The Arduino then looks at output 2 to determine which pattern to display. Output 2 HIGH means Red Alliance, LOW means Blue Alliance. The LEDs then just display the Alliance color.

This is a very simple use of the outputs to drive LEDs. Discrete LEDs can also be driven directly by the Launchpad, but care must be taken to not exceed the current ratings of the board.

Here is a very helpful web page to help you figure out how to use your Launchpad.

[reuven]

my team made a control box using the Labview LVH-LINX library (you can see more about them in this link )
we planted the code to read the data from the arduino (we used the UNO ) in our dashboard, sanding the data to the robot using the SmartDashbord VI's
i think that the same method will allow you to set outputs to an arduino...