New Robot Control System!

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Qbranch

mmmmm zigbee... that would be GREAT! no more drop outs, crushed flower pots, trashcans, or dented walls!

Zigbee? Zigbee wasn't designed for bandwidth - The 802.15.4 bit rates are specifically limited to 250Kbps compared to 1Mbps for Bluetooth. I personally would prefer wireless 802.11[n/g] for everything, if power was not a concern.

-Danny

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

Change is scary, more now then in other situations. ... If I am interpreting this email blast correctly it leads me to believe that the RC, OI, Victor, Spike, Arena Controller, and field control software will be all be gone.

Maybe not the field control software. I agree it appears that we'll be getting a new arena controller, RC, OI, motor controller, and relay for the 2009 season. The 2007 FMS is a major improvement over what we had; it should be improved further, not scrapped.

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

Now I do see the potential for this change which will enable established teams to do more with their robots, but my doubts stem from the rookie teams of 2009 and on. Rookie teams need support from veterans which will be a seemingly impossible task if everyone is in the dark. Utilities like easyC and the WPI libraries will all have to be redone. I know that there is better technology out there which could make things easier but how much harder will it be to run an event when the bugs are still being worked out.

I agree there will probably be slowdown in new team development by existing teams; that may be offset by team development through new channels if the new control system offers a signficant reduction in learning curve.

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

I am happy that they decided to give this development over one year but it concerns me that FIRST might have cut their nose off to spite their face by locking themselves into a new system which as of now is probably just on the drawing board or early stages of development. I just hope that the people who make decisions know what they are doing in this situation.

I hope so too.

Announcing the schedule for introducing the new system is really the only way FIRST can drive this to happen. 2009 will be a challenging target. I'm just happy that FIRST recognized they can't realistically introduce a new system sooner.

Yes, change is scary; however, this change can and should be a good thing. Many present FIRST participants and volunteers have skills and experience that enable them to help FIRST make that happen; I sincerely hope that potential will be recognized and used effectively.

[Eldarion]

Something like this would be a giant step forward...
http://www.analog.com/en/prod/0,2877...DSTAMP,00.html

As far as auxiliary control system hardware goes, I for one will continue working on it. The new processor is still a general-purpose computer system, and application-specific computers will always perform better at their specific task(s).

It would seem to me that the new system, if properly designed, could actually offer teams the chance to incorporate more sensors and sophisticated control algorithms (maybe even AI?) than the old system.

Just my $0.02.

I am sad to see the old system go though, especially after reverse-engineering the field control system

[Qbranch]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

Finally, it would be great if they picked a processor with a free toolchain (GCC would make the most sense). AVR or ARM would be a good choice for this. It would open the doors to Mac/Linux development. Unfortunately I think they have a strong relationship with Microchip so we'll probably continue to see more PICs in there...

I have to say that staying with pics is probably the best thing to do mostly because teams' older members as well as software mentors are all experienced in pic architecture, how the peripherals operate, etc. A huge amount of relearning throughout the FIRST community would have to be done if the RC started using a processor from a different silicon manufacturer.

Plus, though other chips are flashier in their features the PIC microcontroller has a very high level of robustness such as high drive current on output pins and the ability to even handle a few ESD hits. I admit that having an ATMEGA8 or MEGA16 or heck even a mot ColdFire would be sweet, but, in the application environment I'd rather take the pic overall. Plus, you get the compiler for free from first...

-q

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Covey41

This topic is less than 3 hours old and the Chief Delphi community is complianing already:



Let's not forget the 2007 radios! (No cell phones near the radio towers.)



I don't care who designed it, or who makes it, NO ONE makes anything perfect the first time, or for that matter everytime.

Lets disprove a new saying overherd at the VIP reception in Atlanta:
"FIRST - Technolgy building egos"

The process just started, give them a chance!

First off, I don't think anyone is complaining. We are just identifying difficulties which will need to be addressed. It may come as a shock to someone without a team but it makes it very difficult to build a program at a school when drastic things change from year to year. Over the past couple years (05+) there have been some major consistencies which increased the quality of the robots across the board. Things like the kit chasis and transmission along with easyC gave teams without engineering support the ability to make decent machines. Now as someone who has been in FIRST longer then I have you have seen things change more over the years with both good and bad results. The overall trend is to fix things that need improving like moving from the FIRSt built robot control system to the Pbasic IFI system and then making the change to the C IFI system. Each one of those changes was big and they had their problems but the structure was there to overcome. I have no idea what they are looking at or who would build it I just know that change can cause unwarranted problems. I have faith that whatever gets built will work and the community will adapt, I just hope that the changes are being made for the correct reasons like improving technology or making things easier for teams and not fed by other private agendas.

As for your quote about technology egos, without context it doesn't really seem to apply to this situation unless you have some other information about a new control system you would like to share.

[Qbranch]

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

Zigbee? Zigbee wasn't designed for bandwidth - The 802.15.4 bit rates are specifically limited to 250Kbps compared to 1Mbps for Bluetooth. I personally would prefer wireless 802.11[n/g] for everything, if power was not a concern.

uhm... right now we're at 19200baud on the first control system... thats 19.2Kbps... I'd rather take the stability of Zigbee at a speed thats already 13 times faster than what we're using now... not to mention to actually use all the bandwidth of 802.11n/g you'll be using most your processor just to do communications...

At the place where I work, we use some MaxStream ZigBee chip modems to link our plant AGVs together, and as of yet the system has proved flawless and the range excellent, in the 250' x 250' steel-constructed factory they can still communicate with eachother at extremely low (often no) packet drop rates.

Anybody have any other suggestions on radio systems that would be interesting? I know that theres more out there than just Zigbee and the 802.11x standards... any other suggestions?

-q

[Bharat Nain]

I have to agree with what Dave and Greg said. This is a huge step on the part of FIRST. I wish IFI communicated with us earlier when they had the 8.3/8.2v bug and the radio problems so teams like us were not wondering if something was wrong with our code. All this was a result of a version 1.0 as mentioned above. I hope FIRST puts in a lot of time and effort into pre-testing the new control system. There are more than enough off-season competitions through out the continent for this to be tested. The hardest part of accepting a new control system is their familiarity with FIRST. IFI has been a very long time partner and they know the way FIRST works and its requirements. I hope we know who the new vendor is and I hope they attend many competitions next year to understand what is required. Version 1.0 of the new control system should be 2007-2008 off-seasons so by the time the season rolls around, a lot of the bugs are worked out and there is considerable amount of experience among FIRST teams. Like many others, I will not be happy if we have to deal with a very buggy system in the 2009 season. I am sure FIRST realizes this but I hope they take appropriate steps to ensure this wont happen. At the championship, we were told there will be increased communication between FIRST and teams, so we should get updates as this progresses.

[Eldarion]

Actually, I kind of like the idea of having a 802.11x transceiver on each robot. It would open up some interesting possibilities as each robot could now communicate not only to the arena controller, but to the other robots on its alliance. Can you imagine the autonomous mode possibilities?

[chaoticprout]

This completely awesome, and the only thing I'm bummed about is that I won't see it as a High School student, graduating in 2008.

[JesseK]

I hope to god it's not Java-based.

Java on an embedded system is horribly bloated and slow compared to other programming languages and techniques. It's also very very easy to create memory leaks when you have several different software/hardware packages that you're trying to integrate together. So some might see Java as a blessing for an easier language to program/debug in, but the catch is that it will be terribly slower unless the processing speed is that much vastly greater.

For you Java programmers, see if you can create any sort of code for your current drive train using event handlers, enums (Java 1.5+), and other nifty dynamic things that Java allows (like the Math functions). Then force the code to perform an exception in the Event queue (easiest one is a null-pointer exception on state data that you expect to be there but isn't there). That 25-line stack trace is enough to convince me that this language is too bloated for the simple things we're trying to do.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Bharat Nain

The hardest part of accepting a new control system is their familiarity with FIRST. IFI has been a very long time partner and they know the way FIRST works and its requirements. I hope we know who the new vendor is and I hope they attend many competitions next year to understand what is required.

...and here's where my real concern is too. If and I repeat "IF" (becuase we've had no official word) IFI is not the developer or involved in the new system:
1. How well will the new vendor know FIRST? While it's fair to give people time to get up to speed, does anyone really want to work their bottom off during the build and have things not work in competition?

2. How well will teams and volunteers be able to handle the multitude of potential issues that go along with the incredible flexibility we're talking about?

3.. Will the vendor be able to provide the same expert customer service that IFI has provided? A system expert on the ground at every regional from Wed night through Saturday (even when there are ten events in a week) and several at the Championship?

I'm all for new and better as long as it benefits teams and events, but I have very real concerns here.

[Danny Diaz]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

...and here's where my real concern is too. If and I repeat "IF" (becuase we've had no official word) IFI is not the developer or involved in the new system.

Every bone in my body tells me this is something FIRST has already dealt with or is currently dealing with. You list a lot of good points, but realize that when you think of all the bad things that can happen (new vendor, support, etc...) there's at least 2 people at FIRST who have also thought of this. Changing technology is never an easy thing to do, it must be approached with caution - I think we should give FIRST the benefit of doubt in such areas.

-Danny

I'll bet its a version of the NxT conroller used for Lego League.

But I hope they don't try to migrate to the Inteletek C or the Microsoft Robolab stuff and actually look to see what direction industry is going so we can develop skills that we can use in the future. Maybe something more LABview focused.

I suspect the details we be announced two days before kick-off. :-)

BC

[Roger]

Since we're all putting our wish list items up, I just hope they make the board plugs and numbers a mite bit bigger so I can see the darn things. Good thing the kids are doing it because I certainly can't!

And upgrade from C to something like FORTRAN.





Okay, seriously, we can stay with C. Just as long as Kevin can understand it I'll try to keep up.

[Joe Matt]

I find this VERY interesting, FIRST usually doesn't announce things like this early. Could it be used as a scare tactic against IFI? Possibly, probably not. I think we might see FIRST in the future asking us what we want to see, and this announcement as a way of giving everyone a heads up. Maybe this is why Team Forums are more limited this year?

/me ponders the possibilites