So FIRST has sent a survey out to see what kind of tech we would expect to see in future games.
I was involved with RC FPV flight before I was involved with FIRST and the latency of the video streams through the FMS makes me cringe.
Can we all vote for permitting the use of RC FPV transmitters and receivers?
This opens a huge amount of equipment for video capture and modification/switching as well as on-screen-displays for the driver. No doubt the game will get super immersive. And it would put less strain on the FMS.
This is of course just for driving. Vision systems on the robot would be unchanged.
Any thoughts?
If you haven’t seen the survey and your over 13 bug your mentor.
Yeah, I agree. After flying FPV on quads the driver station camera delay seems absurd.
The problem with using analog video technology similar to RC FPV transmitters/receivers is that they leave very little space for multiple robots, and coordinating frequencies to use would be difficult. Flying with 3-4 other quads in the air is difficult enough, imagine that with 6+ robots.
Unless FIRST somehow manages to come up with proprietary receivers/transmitters with easily changeable frequencies and a super wide frequency range, I don’t see this happening. Additionally, someone in the pits could turn on their robot (on the same frequency) and your video would get completely destroyed.
Initially our team looked into Connex’s gear to drive our robot, before we realized it would be illegal. Maybe something like that would fit the purpose well?
Though I don’t have first hand experience, what I’ve gathered from various videos I’ve seen is that RC FPV (First Person View) is a system that utilizes a small camera mounted to an RC device (typically a drone or plane) and wirelessly transmits a live video feed back to the pilot so they can operate the device from the perspective of the RC vehicle itself, instead looking from a distance. RC FPV operates on a separate frequency range from the control coms and range varies by transmitter and antennae configuration.
As long as the transmitter is FCC Part 15 certified, no license is needed to operate, and there are many commercially available transmitters that fall into this category. You start skirting regulations when people develop their own transmitters (less common, but does happen).
this is just one product in one band with multiple channels. it would be possible to run different frequency bands as well ie. 1.3, 2.3, 2.4 (maybe) 5.8Ghz and 900Mhz each with channels within them.
I do think it would be easiest to have the transmitter be part of the field just to limit and conflicts with too many people powering up transmitters.
yes a HAM licensed operator would be required for most frequencies but i think we could pull through.
FPV pilots typically utilize the 5.8ghz band for video. It is subdivided into the A, B, C, F, and Race bands. The video is sent through your transmitter on the drone side and received through the pilot side. The lag can be from 5ms to 50ms, but usually around the 10-15ms area.
Some pilots use the 1.3ghz band or even 400mhz for better range, but it required a ham license to operate per FCC Law. I doubt FIRST will do this, as it’s a whole lot of training, and the solution we have right now isn’t bad enough to warrant innovation in that area.
The big problem with this is that it creates multipathing between the robot control and the video feed, as they both use 5.8. (or 2.4). There is a set amount of feeds you can have at a time, and this introduces the possibility of some teams using another’s band to gain an unfair advantage. Think about the possible 36 streams occurring at the same time at the Championship in coming years. That would really be a nightmare.
I think it will be quite a while before we use an analog FPV style system in FIRST. I don’t think it will be adopted before a better, digital solution is created which can handle the severe interference introduced.
All in all, I do think it would be really cool to be able to tune into robot feeds from the stands, but it’s a long ways off.
Just my 2 cents, please correct me if anything above is inaccurate.
I disagree. I witnessed the world record amount of FPV race pilots flying at the same time, which was 16. This required months of preparation, special antenna, and sub 25mW transmitters. I believe a proprietary digitalized solution, like Connex is the only way that we’re going to get better video feeds in FIRST is going to happen. It would be nice to see Connex jump in and see I they can create a solution for FIRST. Interestingly enough, DJI has a pretty good solution to getting feeds down on the 2.4ghz band, and they managed to get something like 20 feeds clear as day, albeit in the middle of a desert with no signal interference.
Some kind of transmitter/receiver system that can hop channels to less crowded ones during a match could work, but I still don’t see this happening in the close future.
FPV stands for First Person View. I also fly quadcopters, little racers, and use a 5.8 ghz transmitter with an analog camera attached to it. I have a pair of video goggles with a built in receiver so I can fly my quad as if I am sitting in the cockpit. I also use a similar setup in my Mech Warfare robot.
Because it is an analog signal there is very little (almost none) latency. The trade offs are that the video fades in and out, there is fairly low resolution, and you are limited in the number of transmitters you can run in the same space at the same time.
Standard RC FPV is basically a 5.8ghz analog video signal being broadcast to a receiver. It’s super noisy and only works well when there are <4 pilots who are all on very different frequencies. There’s a lot of overlap and interference when other peoples’ transmitters are within close proximity, so I don’t see this working well for FRC.
Edit: as OP said, you could probably manage to get away with having many pilots if using 1.3GHz and 2.4GHz frequencies as well. That brings legal issues (and the possibility of someone stomping on your signal from the pits).
One important thing to consider for this discussion is that FIRST has already banned the use of eye-covering Head Mounted Displays (there was a Q&A question from someone wanting to use an Oculus Rift), and most RC FPV units that I’ve seen fall into this category. You would need an external screen or something comparable to a Google Glass that doesn’t block the eyes for it to be allowed under current rules.
Actually assuming that this fpv transmission system would be the same as on the quadcopters I’ve used then even the audience would be able to switch to a certain channel and see their robots point of view which would make some awesome match videos.
Although I don’t have qualms with allowing 5.8GHz FPV transmitters to be used for FRC robot video streaming, a USB camera with H264 compression (like this one) and a negligible bandwith and FPS setting shouldn’t have extremely high latency like you describe.