Alternatives to RoboRIO or Robot Controllers

[ozrien]

Originally Posted by jreneew2

Thanks for the suggestion! I was looking at that and it looks like it only supports C#? Our project lead really wants to use python for everything. Is there a way that we can connect this to a PC and run code from there? I am not very familiar with .net. Or is this more of a stand-alone platform?

ATM it's standalone, meaning you deploy your app onto the HERO and it runs your code (with debugger if you have Visual Studio attached).

I have a few customers who have taken a USB-to-TTL-serial cable and sent serial commands from PC-custom-app(USB COMM Port) to HERO (UART), UART example is on our GitHub.

Then you can develop in your host environment and do the actuator-related code in the HERO (like setting up Closed Loops, motion profiles, motion-magic settings for Talon SRX, pneumatics, collect and filter sensors, etc...).

Or go the other way and use HERO as an aid to port whatever Talon/PCM/PDP features to your platform.

Or use the HERO by itself as the robot controller. Recently FRC 900 (Zebracorns) posted a white paper on it...
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/papers/3286
...porting their 2014 robot from cRIO to HERO. One benefit to that is you can just plug in a wireless gamepad into the HERO without requiring a DS-PC or setting up a radio.