Success with IR remotes in Week #1?

[David Brinza]

Just wondering how many teams used IR remotes last week and how successful they were with commanding their robots.

Over what range did the remote operate reliably?

Was there interference (jamming) from other IR remotes?

Did you position your Robocoach on the far side of the field?

Please describe your experience and what you plan to do to improve reliability.

[Madison]

We use IR to tell our robot where our trackball is. The robot then follows a predetermined trajectory.

IR worked well for us and we experienced no interference, even when partnered with other teams also using IR.

We lost the ability to control the robot using IR about 15' away from the player station, I'd guess. We have an abort function that did not work during competition, but worked fine in our lab. Our robocoach was positioned next to our player's station.

We experienced a power failure mid-match during the elimination rounds that, it seems, wiped out the IR board's learned signals. After that round, our IR remote was unable to signal the robot and our hybrid mode no longer worked. Ultimately, we were eliminated as a result. (Sorry 100 and 2550. Really.)

[dtengineering]

Our IR remote worked GREAT! For changing TV channels, at least.

If you wanted it to work on the robot you needed something other than the IR board. Although IR board reprogramming was availble on Thursday at Oregon, our board cut out at some point between the end of re-programming and the beginning of competition.

It probably wouldn't have made much difference. A simple "drive forward" command was enough to pick up four points, and a simple timed loop almost got us around the corner on the first try.

Our most effective use of auto mode was in the quarters when (after getting blown out in the first match by two really good auto-bots) we just moved forward about four feet using a timed loop and blocked their path. Hardly brilliant, but it was effective. We should have finished off with a quick sprint across the four point line, now that I think of it.

But hybrid mode has possibilities, and I think it should be not too difficult to completely bypass the IR board and hook a Vishay or PNA4602M style receiver up to the RC and read the IR transmissions directly. We've been doing it for years with PIC 16f627 and 16f84 chips on mini-sumo robots that we build, but we use PIC Basic Pro, which has some very efficient commands for doing that kind of stuff and only use the Sony IR protocol. We'll need to put together some good C programmers to come up with a reliable and simple way of doing it on the RC.

Jason

[Guy Davidson]

We never used our remote, although we are planning to for the next regional.

Other than the cutting out issue, do you feel the problems were mostly with the specific IR board itself, or with using IR communication (due to noise or line-of-sight issues)?

[Cow Bell Solo]

that is good to know about the IR remote, I might have a backup code ready for competition

[Kevin Watson]

Originally Posted by dtengineering

...I think it should be not too difficult to completely bypass the IR board and hook a Vishay...style receiver up to the RC and read the IR transmissions directly. We've been doing it for years with PIC 16f627 and 16f84 chips on mini-sumo robots that we build, but we use PIC Basic Pro, which has some very efficient commands for doing that kind of stuff and only use the Sony IR protocol. We'll need to put together some good C programmers to come up with a reliable and simple way of doing it on the RC.

This should make the task a bit easier:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=65065

-Kevin