Anyone interested in a Linux-based robot solution?

[taichichuan]

Originally Posted by Peter Johnson

I've been exploring options for a Linux based robot controller for my own projects. Thoughts so far:

- Gumstix Overo Earth COM processor module (http://www.gumstix.com/store/catalog...roducts_id=211)
- Gumstix Chestnut43 I/O board (http://www.gumstix.com/store/catalog...roducts_id=237)

The Overo Earth has a 600 MHz OMAP3503 processor (ARM Cortex-A8 CPU), and 256 MB of RAM, so it's more powerful and has more memory than the cRIO. It will happily boot off a microSD expansion card (you can get 8-16 GB ones nowadays for cheap). Runs Linux like a champ.

The Overo is a good little board and it's frequently used by the aerospace firms (Lock-Mart, NG, etc.) for control operations because it's cheap, fast, and with the PREEMPT_RT patch in place, capable of good determinism using Linux. It also runs quite nicely on a couple of AA batteries. With a set of USB I/O, the Overo board would be an excellent alternative. FWIW, you can also run VxWorks on it if you really wanted to.

Another option would be the Beagleboard:

http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...&k=beagleboard

It's a little cheaper than the Overo and has USB I/O on it as well (same processor as the Overo). BTW, the OMAP 3530 on these boards includes a TI C6X DSP engine. Maybe not as hard core as the cRIO FPGA, but still better than relying on the CPU for everything.

The Phidgets SBC (http://www.phidgets.com/products.php...oduct_id=1070), is an ARM with 8 DI, 8 DO and 8 AIs built onto the board for about $260. And VEX has a new ARM 9 controller in the works with similar I/O capabilities. Once the WPILib is ported to Linux, then any of these inexpensive boards could be used with the same tool chain and O/S release. This would simplify the certification process if FIRST would consider it.

Mike