cryptonite robotics labview beta findings

December 19, 2015

2

• New in Beta 2016• Problems and Solutions• Resources

overview

2

new in beta 2016

new in beta 2016

• Installation Time• mDNS Naming System• Spreadsheet Read/Write• FRC Bridge Configuration Utility• Command and Control Code Structure

installation time

• The average installation of LabVIEW and the FRC Update Suite together took about 50 minutes • LabVIEW ~45 min• FRC Update ~5 min• That is about half the time of last year.

mdns naming system

• The mDNS name for the roboRIO last year was roboRIO-XXYY.local• In beta, it is now roboRIO-XXYY-FRC.local

When the old code was originally loaded in

We had to change it to this to connect

spreadsheet read & write

• The Spreadsheet VIs in the File I/O Palette have been updated. • LabVIEW will import the old ones still, they will just have

a red X on them.• The new VIs have better error handling and a few more

optional inputs.

frc bridge configuration utility

• You can now load firmware to the radio from the configuration utility

command and control code structure

• This is a new system that uses commands and command handlers to transtion robot states.• In previous years, you could only use global states and

commands to control State Machines.• To use this new structure, you have to be very familiar

with LabVIEW. It is not a required way to program in LabVIEW, its just another option.• This new structure looks like it encourages each

subsystem to be its own Periodic Tasks.vi

command and control code structure

• Each Subsystem has its own folder. One folder named Framework contains the default files (Begin, Periodic Tasks, etc.)

• This image is from our 2015 robot code. It uses a similar structure (notice the Framework folder)

problems and solutions

12

• Network Connectivity• Deploying Code• Getting data from our UDP Dashboard• WPILib problems• Connecting to the roboRIO Web Interface

problems encountered

12

network connectivity

• There were many problems in the early beta revisions with the driver station not connecting to the robot• Some of this had to do with us not realizing that we

needed to set our project mDNS to roboRIO-624-FRC.local

getting data from udp dashboard• Because of the amount of data we pass to and from the

robot we use a UDP dashboard in order to make sure that our data gets to the robot.

In beta the dashboard had problems sending and receiving data

the new radio

• We found that the old D-Link radio was the root of most of our connection problems.

• By replacing the old radio with the new radio, the connection issues were resolved, and we were able to get data from the dashboard.

Side Note: To install the new radio, you cannot use the normal Radio power input on the VRM. You have to connect it to 12V~2A for it to get enough voltage and current

new radio, new things

1. There are only 2 ethernet ports in the new radio.2. It matters which port you plug your ethernet cables

into now3. In order to use the new radio, you will rely heavily on

the configuration utility4. There is no switch for Radio Mode anymore. You must

configure this with the utility

deploying code

• Initially, there were a lot of problems deploying code.• It was slow, it stalled and sometimes would not deploy

at all• This occured with both Hard and Soft deploy• Additionally, there were some errors

errors deploying code

roborio reset

• By pressing the RESET button, we were able to solve some of the problems associated with the code not deploying.

waveforms and big clusters

• The Memory full error came from using waveform charts in the robot code.• You can use waveform charts on the dashboard, but not

on the robot. • You can use Network Tables for this.

wpilib problems

• The Potentiometer Get Refnum VI was messed up in one of the beta revisions. We had to make our own Potentiometer Refnum Get.

This is what the Potentiometer Code looked like

wpilib fix

• We reported the error to NI and they told us how to fix the WPILib problem with the potentiometer.

This is what the Potentiometer Code is supposed to look like

connecting to the roborio web interface

• When using Chrome, this error message appears:

• Upon further research, chrome and many other browsers no longer support Microsoft Silverlight

the ironic solution

internet explorer

• Internet Explorer is one of the only browsers that still supports Microsoft Silverlight• Not even Microsoft Edge supports Silverlight• Since we used Windows 10 during the Beta Test, we had

to use the search tool to find Internet Explorer.

resources

• We developed experimental feed forward code during beta testing.• You can find this code, our 2015 code and this

presentation at: http://team624.org/?controller=page&action=programmingResources

any questions?That's it!

contact us

• Email us at info@team624.org if you have any additional questions