I am however curious as to why you need real-time communication to your robot. If it is because you have some math going on the PDA side I still dont see why you actually need real-time. Because you really want the robot to talk to you once he has done the move, when he can accept a new move, or just before.
As for a servo readback, the servos are usually (as long as they have enough torque to get there) in exactly the spot you programmed them to go. What you can do is have another variable on both PDA and RN side where the RN changes this variable depending on which position he is in. For example:
if P(arbitrary #) = 0 then RN is standing, if P = 1 RN is crouching...
And so forth to all of your important positions. This takes time away from reading all the servos (which is slow anyway) and just sends a byte and the PDA can essentially know what that byte means and fill in the blanks. Furthermore, if your accelerometer readings are saying that you are not standing, you can have the PDA give you a red light and say the position is incorrect, re-read, and while doing so, the RN can get up independently (like a good robot should).
The only time i can see a real-time feedback loop is neccesary (other than a camera which could act independently) would be for a robot positioning system. Say you want your robot to survey a room, walk around, and then come back where he started. You would constantly be reading the accelerometer much the way a GPS works when it cant find a satelite. You could call your code the RPS.
But as for a soccer player, you can just set the basic commands and little feedback to the PDA. Have the robot as independent as you can (ie: get up on its own when it falls over regardless of what the PDA tells it to do first-or this can be a different 'mode'). I find the real challange is to make the robot do as much as it can on its own with no outside help (a controller). The robot becomes more autonomous and thus much more interesting.
The real advantage provided by a phone or PDA is the a screen. This allows you to have menu upon menu without the RoboBasic being bogged down. The PDA/phone side can have descriptions of all the modes and has a much faster processor than the RN.
So thats probably about $.05 for me now, heh. I agree that it would be nice to have interupts and real-time loops. But that isnt RoboBasic. The only thing you are getting real-time in is DELAYs and the Gyros. Other than that, youll need to find another way.
Goodluck, and btw, welcome to the forums.Statistics: Posted by hivemind — Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:51 pm
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