Our success with these systems prompted us to design a solution that was readily accessible to FIRST teams and leveraged our interest in Arduino and open-source software development.
Our RobotOpen Control Shield fits the standard Arduino platform and is intended as a drop in replacement for an NI cRIO. The shield is fitted with a 37 pin connector that directly connects to a Digital Sidecar and gives you access to 10 pwm outputs and 8 digital I/O. The shield also has support for 6 analog inputs.
Keeping old robots up and running or developing practice bots with this system is simple and low-cost. The Arduino at the heart of the system is open-source, student friendly and well supported throughout the hobby community.
Along with the shield we have developed the RobotOpen Protocol and associated Arduino libraries. The protocol and libraries, when combined with our Driver Station App make setting up joysticks and controlling your robot via wifi a cinch. The Robotopen Protocol is the real gem of this system as it takes the mystery out of UDP based wifi communications for your robots.
The driver station app is platform neutral and is designed to work with most popular USB input devices. Our protocol also supports transmitting data back from your robot.
This FRC specific product is the first in a series of similar control products based on the RobotOpen Protocol; including some exciting work we’re doing with tablets and smart phones.
We are putting the finishing touches on our web portal now. We plan to be live for ordering this weekend. Happy FRC Season 2012.
Very cool and interesting project. I’m wondering what arduino controllers this is compatible with? It looks like you’d need the ethernet enabled arduino, but would it also be possible to use the ethernet sheild on a standard uno?
Are you making this an open hardware project, or trying to stay closed as sort of a fundraiser?
This is a great idea. I would like to see more on specs, documentation, cost, etc (available on your website? It’s blocked at my work, sorry).
I’m sure that most teams normally try to re-use an IFI system for maintaining the usage of their robots, if they have them. We have done this, and although we have many IFI boards there are certain disadvantages that this product would win against.
My only criticism is calling this product a “Drop-In” replacement. While the hardware I/O mimics the basic connectivity (to an extent) it is most certainly not a drop-in replacement. Besides the obvious that all software would have to be re-written (Dashboard/Driver Station/Robot) this board also lacks (I assume) vision processing abilities, multiple quadrature encoders, etc etc. I’m not putting this product down at all, but I would call it something more sensible like a cRIO-alternative or something along these lines. When you call it a drop-in replacement, I think some newer people would automatically assume this device is capable of performing the same functionality as the cRIO, which it is not.
Arduino original and UNO with or without an Ethernet shield and with the Arduino Ethernet pictured.
To explain the system further; the RobotOpen Control Shield comes paired with a complete operator interface program that works out of the box with most USB joysticks on Linux, Windows and Macs. This communication is based on our RobotOpen Protocol. It is handling the heavy lifting when it comes to wifi and data transmission.
If you wanted to keep your 2011 FRC bot running without a cRIO you could replace the cRIO with this system. You’d then follow these steps:
1: Provide the Arduino power, Ethernet and plug in the 37 pin connector to your sidecar.
2: Install the dashboard app on a computer
3: Plug in a USB joystick
4: For many robots, including Kitbots you’d be ready to drive provided you have your pwm’s in the same ports that are mapped in our provided software. You’d have basic driving capability.
For teams with more advanced needs the Arduino must be programmed for features above and beyond basic driving. The Arduino is quite powerful and could be used to replicate a complete robot system.
The beauty of this product in my eyes is the ease of use with respect to wireless communication. And unlike some similar products in the market place RobotOpen is “open.”.
The RobotOpen Protocol was designed from the ground up to be expanded, tweaked and toyed with!
Yup, it’s another atmega328. It’s actually providing the signals for the PWM channels since the Arduino alone doesn’t have enough I/O. It also enables/disables all outputs…sort of like a coprocessor. The Arduino sends all of the PWM positions over serial in addition to a checksum to ensure the integrity of the data.
We’ll be publishing the spec for how this all works shortly. Believe it or not the atmega is actually cheaper than a PWM IC!
For anyone who may have missed our advertising sprint at the start of the season we have a very detailed introduction video of the RobotOpen product and protocol available on our website.
There was enough interest in our initial offering to continue developing new hardware and interface concepts…a tablet based operator station is in testing now as well as video support!
Thank you to everyone who has been excited about the development of this product. We appreciate the support.
Myself being one who speaks Arduino like a second language, I was excited to read about this! Is there a place I can access documentation such as source code and schematics? Thanks!
