Home-brewed Robot Control System (2 computer running LabVIEW, with the old 2008 RC)

[RyanN]

Originally Posted by squirrel

What are you using for communications...the IFI radios?

Most likely 802.11g using AdHoc between the two PCs.

Originally Posted by kamocat

Have you considered turning a laptop into a LabVIEW Real-time Target to put on the robot?

No, but what I have right now is working great. The only lag in the system is between the two PC's, which is not even noticable on a closed network. It is, however, noticable from 1/2 a mile away in your dorm room while you're in a remote desktop connection to the base station.

Originally Posted by BornaE

To send video from the Robot PC to the Base Station, you need to flatten the image into a string. make sure it has JPEG compression and then send over your network. then receive. convert to image and display.

Fairly simple to do. message me on skype if you need further help

We had a miniITX motherboard on our 2010 robot doing image processing. Also redid all of the image transfer code from the robot to the DS and the dashboard to display it from scratch to get 30FPS video.


Quote:
Originally Posted by kamocat
Have you considered turning a laptop into a LabVIEW Real-time Target to put on the robot?
That's easier said than done. lots of compatibility constraints for the realtime target.

That's what I was thinking. I was trying to flatten it to a string using the PNG format, but I got a string too long to send over the network. I'll give the JPEG a try.

I've also been looking at the MiniITX Motherboards on Newegg.com. The only problem with going that route is I have to get a 12V DC input power supply to make them work, plus the lack of display or any controls for that matter (mouse, keyboard) will make operating the robot PC very difficult to do if the remote desktop connection fails for some reason. I can get a netbook for fairly cheap, and I'm also juggling around the idea of using my old Dell E1505 on the robot and sticking my OCZ SSD drive that I have for my MacBook Pro in there for the competition. I would have to run a power inverter to make it work though.