LIDAR Lite Alternative

[marshall]

Originally Posted by edarzins

I just noticed that you can get this for $359, so it's now below the $400 FRC single-part threshold — yay!

http://www.robotshop.com/en/rplidar-...r-scanner.html

Beware that is has a "motor" that might or might not be classified as a servo depending on how you power it and if the inspector has had their coffee that morning.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by marshall

Beware that is has a "motor" that might or might not be classified as a servo depending on how you power it and if the inspector has had their coffee that morning.

No inspector, whether they've had their coffee or not, should confuse that with a "PWM COTS Servo" (R29), which has to be controlled by the PWM port on the roboRIO (R54, R68). The RPLIDAR does have an input for rotation speed, but it is not a RC PWM style input that can be driven by a roboRIO PWM port.

The question for Q/A is whether this counts as "Factory installed vibration and autofocus motors resident in COTS computing devices (e.g. rumble
motor in a smartphone)." (R29).

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

No inspector, whether they've had their coffee or not, should confuse that with a "PWM COTS Servo" (R29), which has to be controlled by the PWM port on the roboRIO (R54, R68). The RPLIDAR does have an input for rotation speed, but it is not a RC PWM style input that can be driven by a roboRIO PWM port.

The question for Q/A is whether this counts as "Factory installed vibration and autofocus motors resident in COTS computing devices (e.g. rumble
motor in a smartphone)." (R29).

I can tell you that as a team who has looked at using one of these from a Neato robot vacuum we were given very unclear inspector decisions around powering the motor via a PWM port and its legality in the past. I'm sure it is a point of debate (thankfully we never put one on a robot to test it).

I think that is an excellent clarification to seek though and I would hope this would be legal. I have a feeling it won't be because the Kinect has a similar type of motor and I believe we were told via the Q&A that it would need to be removed or disabled for the Kinect to be legal.

I think this particular rule and the one about COTS integrated batteries need further explanation. I still want to know if I have a programmable flashlight with a battery if it counts as a COTS computing device.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by marshall

Beware that is has a "motor" that might or might not be classified as a servo depending on how you power it and if the inspector has had their coffee that morning.

Well, hopefully besides having their coffee, the inspector has read the 2017 rules too :-)

R32. The only motors and actuators permitted on 2017 ROBOTS include the following:
...
Motors integral to a COTS sensor (e.g. LIDAR, scanning sonar, etc.), provided the device is not modified except to facilitate mounting

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Well, hopefully besides having their coffee, the inspector has read the 2017 rules too :-)

Wooo!! I am happy this change was made! We asked about these LIDAR systems in 2014 and were denied so glad to see we can use them now.

[Ed Sparks]

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

Well, hopefully besides having their coffee, the inspector has read the 2017 rules too :-)

We will cover this in LRI training next weekend for sure.