NI releasing/designing new controller for FRC

[Steven Donow]

They announced this during opening ceremonies(apparently...I'm watching without sound and going by tweets I've seen).


The reveal will be streamed August 8th at ni.com/first

[engunneer]

During the Opening ceremonies of Championship, they announced that the specs for the 2015-2019 control system will be announced August 8th around 830 AM Central from the NI conference in Austin, TX.

I'm excited to hear that much of the code and knowledge will translate to the new system, and that it will be smaller and lighter than the cRio.

[orangemoore]

That is my Birthday!
I will be 15 on August 8th

[lynca]

It seems from this article that NI has won the RFP given that the controller will be used in 2015.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/r...bot-controller

[Joe Ross]

Here is the press release

http://m.prnewswire.com/news-release...204866181.html

[Foster]

And, Hsu, adds, it’s also “super rugged.” That’s because one thing NI learned watching the FIRST teams using its controller is that, as Hsu puts, “Kids will do anything to it.” The controller gets dropped onto the hard floor; tiny metal shavings get into its modules; some teams have even left it in the rain. Athena is designed to better handle this abuse.

Can't wait to see a swarf and water proof robot controller

[engunneer]

Originally Posted by Foster

Can't wait to see a swarf and water proof robot controller

Ah, but how will the students learn to think about actions without blowing up a Sidecar or two?

[MagiChau]

Originally Posted by engunneer

Ah, but how will the students learn to think about actions without blowing up a Sidecar or two?

They can still wire the speed controllers backwards

[crake]

Originally Posted by Foster

Can't wait to see a swarf and water proof robot controller

Looking for a water game perhaps?

[DonRotolo]

I can say for certain that the FRC community had a lot of input into the RFP. The conclusion is that it will be even more awesome than the C-Rio.

[coalhot]

My hunch is that the new controller will be a new product in the Rio line. It should be awesome, can't wait to see it!

I am somewhat sad that it's NI though. I would have liked to see a control system that is more non-labview friendly, and I would have liked to see what IFI (and other companies) would have come up with. Maybe it's still something that they will launch in the future as hobbyist tools...

[Tom Line]

Originally Posted by coalhot

My hunch is that the new controller will be a new product in the Rio line. It should be awesome, can't wait to see it!

I am somewhat sad that it's NI though. I would have liked to see a control system that is more non-labview friendly, and I would have liked to see what IFI (and other companies) would have come up with. Maybe it's still something that they will launch in the future as hobbyist tools...

I am unsure why you would want to exclude a language that nearly half the first teams use. How do you know that IFI didn't submit a proposal?

[coalhot]

Originally Posted by Tom Line

I am unsure why you would want to exclude a language that nearly half the first teams use. How do you know that IFI didn't submit a proposal?

I doubt that many (half of the) teams use labview. I don't want to start a fight about that here. My point was that I'd like for labview to be an option (like Java or C++), and not something that is heavily stressed because the control system is NI.

Also, I think I worded the second part of my comment badly. Here goes: I really want to see what IFI and other companies came up with. Some of them may not ever release what their idea was because they got turned down for this contract: that would be a shame.

And, can't wait to see what this partnership with Cross the Road brings. CAN Talons please?

[Brandon_L]

Originally Posted by coalhot

I am somewhat sad that it's NI though. I would have liked to see a control system that is more non-labview friendly

Why? NI has done a wonderful job taking a product that wasn't FRC-Specific and bringing it into FRC. It was a little clunky but by far the most powerful system FRC has seen yet. What I loved about it - Its not FRC Specific. cRIO and LabVIEW are used in real world environments, its a true hands on experience. I can't wait to see what they come up with for the new system. From what I heard so far its absolutely amazing. My only concern - with it being all CAN based and the pneumatics module being the way it is - its becoming too "plug-and-play" for my taste. Theres no real electrical work.

As for the "non-labview friendly" statement, I don't know why you would want to limit your options. LabVIEW is built by NI and used with NI products, it shouldn't have issues. If there are, you know exactly who to contact.

Originally Posted by coalhot

I doubt that many (half of the) teams use labview. I don't want to start a fight about that here. My point was that I'd like for labview to be an option (like Java or C++), and not something that is heavily stressed because the control system is NI.

LabVIEW is no more stressed than any other language. When you set up your control system in week 1, the manual offers setup instructions for each language with no bias.

And, can't wait to see what this partnership with Cross the Road brings. CAN Talons please?

If I remember correctly, CAN talons are coming its just a matter of when.

[Billfred]

I'm encouraged by what I saw at the CTRE booth, and I'm intrigued by the few things to come out of the NI camp. I'm hopeful that the net result will feature fewer hard-to-detect gotchas (current monitoring on the PD board could be HUGE for diagnosing electrical problems and preventing magic smoke!)