I saw a presentation on the FIRST Robotics Conference schedule called “FRC Future Technology Showcase”.
Could anyone that attended this share a brief overview of what the Future Technology is for those of us that weren’t down in Atlanta or couldn’t make the presentation?
The first thing is that we will have a choice of using Java next year. See http://sunspotworld.com/frc/Welcome.html.
The second is that somewhere in the future, the CAN bus will be opened to us on the Jaguars. There is a PID controller in the Jaguar that can be used to control position or speed of the motor, plugging a potentiometer or quadrature encoder directly into the jaguar. It can also use voltage control directly, similar to the pwm signal we have now, or a current control to provide a constant torque with the motor.
We will also be able to read the current going to the motors as well as the temperature of the Jaguars through the CAN bus.
Also, it was announced that either a completely new Driver Station was going to be issued, or a thorough overhaul of the current technology could be expected.
Well, it’s not necessary future tech, but they explained the many ways in which teams can utilize the FPGA to their advantage. From what I remember, there was something about robot positioning and analog sensors. Unfortunately, they ran out of time and were unable to elaborate on all of the 30+ slides they had on the subject.
Will this information be published? I know that I was stuck in Scholarship Row all weekend instead of getting to see the cool seminars and stuff.
I recall Brad Miller of WPI saying that many of the presentations would be available on the WPI FIRST site “later next week” i.e. this week.
I assume they will be posted on ThinkTank http://thinktank.wpi.edu (I wasn’t taking proper notes, so maybe another attendee could confirm the location)