NEW 2009 Control System Released

[yongkimleng]

Not sure when I'd be able to get my hands on a cRIO but here are some suggestions based on what ive read here:

1. smaller AP. I think Fons and Merakis are small and have much lower power draw. They can be re-flashed to act as APs and can work off 9-18V. Range within line of sight is 200m+ and got a whole range of 802.11g channels to choose from.

2. run/stop autonomous/manual switching could be just some code at the processor level and some of the FPGA to totally stop the FPGA signalling, cut off power from the PDB, etc. I think locking out the FPGA totally would mean that we'd be missing out on the cool stuff.

3. assuming the system runs off 802.11 entirely, using the principles of a WDT (watchdog timer) on the realtime processor and have the OI sending "heartbeat" packets every T interval, there would be a pretty good system there to prevent the robot from going out of control when the OI loses its link. The competition controller can use the similar system to decide if robots should be in run/stop or autonomous/manual control modes.