Wireless Programming

[FRC4ME]

I was wondering if something like this would be able to wirelessly program the robot. It appears to have all of the required pins and can take +5V power from one of the inputs or outputs on the RC. It claims a maximum speed of 115kbps which is faster than the speed at which a program downloads.

I've heard of others using devices like these to get debug information from the robot, but I've never heard of anyone actually programming the robot this way. Can it be done?

[Alan Anderson]

It seems like it should work, but I've never heard of anyone getting it to work reliably. The "packetizing" of the serial data as it travels across the Bluetooth layer apparently interferes severely with the IFI Loader protocol. If programming works at all, it works extremely slowly.

Cross The Road Electronics planned to produce a wireless programming solution called the Chicken Wire last year. I think the prototype works fine, but I haven't seen it made available for purchase.

[slavik262]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It seems like it should work, but I've never heard of anyone getting it to work reliably. The "packetizing" of the serial data as it travels across the Bluetooth layer apparently interferes severely with the IFI Loader protocol. If programming works at all, it works extremely slowly.

Cross The Road Electronics planned to produce a wireless programming solution called the Chicken Wire last year. I think the prototype works fine, but I haven't seen it made available for purchase.

Any additional packet-management seriously messes with IFI Loader. Just using a USB to serial cord caused the code to download extremely slowly and even time out occasionally.

An alternative would be wireless serial, but from what we've seen they run at about $300 a piece for what you would need to program a robot with.

[Racer26]

I know Ewave (the company that made the old pre-2007 radios) made a product called the STAMPER (Our radios were SCREAMER422s, as opposed to their standard SCREAMER, difference being RS-232/RS-422 serial comms)

The STAMPER was designed to load code to our old pre-2004 IFI RCs, which ran on a Parallax Basic Stamp 2sx. I don't know if it will work with the newer ones or not... I can't really see why not, but you never know.

[Gdeaver]

I wouldn't invest in any hardware untill the details of the new control system are released. First as already indicated that FTC is going to be Blue tooth and I would expect FRC to follow

[FRC4ME]

Originally Posted by slavik262

Any additional packet-management seriously messes with IFI Loader. Just using a USB to serial cord caused the code to download extremely slowly and even time out occasionally.

That's strange. We use a USB-to-serial cord all of the time and never experience those problems.

A few years ago, we thought the USB-to-serial cord was unreliable and stopped using it. This year, however, we discovered that the real problem was the inability of the laptop to power the adapter when its battery level was below 50%.

Now, we just plug in the laptop before downloading and it works at full speed every time.

[Cow Bell Solo]

Yeah we haven't had any problems with the USB-to-Serial after we had the correct configurations set.

I can see having a wireless handy for all those times the programmer might forget to unconnect the laptop and the robot(it wasn't me )

[rpgcubed]

I actually did use a bluetooth to serial bus to program and debug my robot, and it worked quite well. There was no noticeable lag until you got quite far away.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by rpgcubed

I actually did use a bluetooth to serial bus to program and debug my robot, and it worked quite well.

Details, please! What kind of computer, what version of the OS, what brand and model of bluetooth adapter, what configuration settings for the emulated serial port, etc., etc.?

[mluckham]

Yes, please tell!

We used a Bluetooth-to-RS232 device this year, connected to the Programming Port - for sending telemetry data back to the PC. BUT EasyC would not recognize the Windows Bluetooth port and so we had to keep switching the cable back and forth between the Programming Cable and the Bluetooth device.

We did power the Bluetooth RS232 device using 5 volts from the Robot Controller - it worked fine (very fast, sending the data).

[FRC4ME]

I just ordered the BlueSMIRF Gold Bluetooth modem and a Bluetooth dongle.

Any configuration tips to help make this work would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

[3DWolf]

What about something like this?
http://www.a7eng.com/products/embedd...FQLylgod2ig2AA
Has the +5v option, 250kbps
I've often thought about a wireless option to programming - because that darn cable can come out so easy. Especially when you hear your last call 1/2 way through your download and you don't move the laptop fast enough and your robot gets stuck in program state on the playing field (again, I swear it wasn't me)
I don't know much about the logistics behind bluetooth or anything like that - I only know the most simple of programming to get by and program the robot

[tdlrali]

I'd hold off on those expensive Bluetooth/Serial/whatever purchases, you never know what next year's control system will throw at us. I'm willing to bet there won't be much RS232 going on.

[Shadow503]

We experimented with something a wireless serial device (I think it was called the xbee). I don't know what all the other people mean with all this "packetizing" talk, but I have gotten both this and a usb to rs232 cable to work perfectly.

Both were slower than the standard serial, but I found the wireless adapter was worth it. We could read data from a bot without having to keep it tethered all the time.

[Jared Russell]

I've successfully used an HCS12 microcontroller with ZigBee (802.15.4) to program a robot controller before (did it as a project in a digital systems course ). Speed was almost as good as with wired serial. One PC would connect with serial to one HCS12 and transmit - the other is connected to the RC and simply buffers and passes through the data.

So...if you happen to have two HCS12s with ZigBee hardware lying around - go for it?