Live Streaming Video

Last year we were promised the ability to view live video streaming from the robot to a computer dashboard on the Operator Interface. We then abruptly had that taken away when they decided there was not enough bandwidth for everyone to be streaming video. Anybody have this working? Hoping to use it this year? We couldn’t find anywhere on the rules that specify ability for live video. Hopefully they will realize how wrong they were about last year. Think about it. Even with wireless G, the speed is 54mb/s. That’s 9mb/s per team. The control systems cannot use much more than 1mb/s, and 8mb/s is plenty to stream video from those axis cameras we have. Any idea why they didn’t (and maybe don’t) want us streaming video?

My guess is that the policy last year was a “better safe than sorry” policy, and if they don’t have evidence to suggest it will be an issue I expect them to allow it this year.

I would say this year it will be something now that the game has been revealed we will be able to use. The 2go PC runs the dashboard program for the Drivers station and has a window to view the camera input.

Looking at the rules, it reads like the camera streaming to the dashboard is allowed this year.

At kickoff they demonstrated using a live stream since you can’t see that well in the farther zones and also for alignment in the underpasses

Though we all know that just because something is shown at kick off doesn’t mean it’s allowed. The rules define what is and isn’t allowed.

Well, it does sound as if it is a go this year. Let’s hope there isn’t a rule update about this anytime soon (or at all).

Its a peer to peer connection so the robot will have a 54 Mb/s connection. 54 Mb/s is plenty of speed to stream a connection. Cable TV systems usually run on less speed than that. The problem is the latency of wireless but with just 2 on a connection it shouldn’t be a problem.