Please provide me a program for tank level control using DAQ & labview8.5 software

[MarkBlack]

mjcoss,

While National Instruments is focusing on creating training material on LabVIEW there will be similar training material developed by WPI who, as you may know, is developing the C libraries for 2009 FRC season. While I do not want to comment on exactly when training material will be released by WPI it should be well before the build season beings. National Instruments is also currently coordinating with WPI to make sure the same basic training topics are being created for LabVIEW and C/C++.

Cheers,

Mark

[MarkBlack]

pallen wrote:

A nice thing to see is how to get started with a new piece of hardware literally right out of the box. Unpack it. Connect it. Get data.

This stuff is all easy once you've done it. But for first time users to new hardware it could save a lot of time.

There will be a video walk-through of how to do this included our first "phased" release of training material next week!

[BradMiller]

There are a number of resources for learning C/C++ online.There are many free C++ development environments based on eclipse, from Microsoft, and others. We will have sample programs and templates that will help teams get started. You can access those templates from within Wind River Workbench. There is also a Users Guide that will be coming out that talks about stragegies for writing robot programs and using all the compontents. There is also doxygen documenation - that is documentation that is automatically generated from the source code comments of the WPI Robotics Library.

And, there is always the WPILib source code itself which will be availalbe to all teams. This gives users of the library a chance to see how each of the components is implemented and will give some additional insight into how it all works beyond the documentation.

Hope this helps.

Brad

[Kevin_S]

Hi cabbagekid2,

The LabVIEW software will have multiple examples. The goal is for you to have access to simple examples that demonstrate the available sensor and output features. You could then potentially copy and paste all the simple examples into one VI and integrate them all into one program. Of course, you can also start from scratch and build your program using the examples as templates.

I've never used EasyC, so I can't compare what will be available with relation to this software.

From what I understand, each driver station can only control one robot.

The LabVIEW FRC edition was built from LabVIEW 8.5.1. Of course, an overhaul was done. You will have custom palettes that allow you to access your FRC sensors and outputs. Most of the other palettes (math functions, loop structures, etc.) will also be included.

I hope this helps,

Kevin S.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[mjcoss]

It's not "learning C or C++" tutorials that I'm interested in, I've several students that are quite proficient, and we've some tutorials that I will given the new programmers. It's

a) What software development environment is going to recommended?. At Nationals there was talk of using Eclipse which would be fine. But how is this going to work . Are we using Xlinix tools? WindRiver tools? Maybe I've missed pointers to the nuts and bolts and if so I apologies, but every embedded system that I've work on the devil is in the details on how to create images, and get them downloaded to the platform. While I know that Labview will hide these ugly details, for those of us that will be trying to use C, the sooner we get the details the better prepared we'll be.

b) When will the WPI libraries be available? API?

I realize that these are NI forums but since the discussion was on training resources....

---Michael J Coss

[BradMiller]

Oh...now I understand the question.

You'll be getting Wind River Workbench 3.0 with VxWorks running inside the robot. This is based on eclipse. The programs that you create will be Downloadable Kernel Modules, a type of program that runs in the kernel address space.

The timing on the release of the documenation and source code is a FIRST decision, but I'm guessing it will have to wait until at least a few weeks into the beta and those teams have had a chance to make a first pass set of comments. And, of course, no later than when the early access kits come out. FIRST has said that they will be shipping by the end of November to registered teams.

Brad Miller

WPI Robotics Resource Center

[dheeraj]

Please provide me a program for tank level control using DAQ & labview8.5 software

[Kevin_S]

Hi dheeraj,

A tank drive example has already been created and is being integrated into the examples available with the FRC version of LabVIEW. The reason I can't give it to you now is that you won't be able to run it. It doesn't use the DAQmx driver, it requires Driver Station hardware, and it requires the FRC LabVIEW software. (Not to mention the fact that the examples themselves are continually changing to include all the features.)

If you have a specific question regarding its functionality, ask away. Just know that whatever I tell you can potentially change.

Kevin S.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[Dr. F]

It is now 10/31/08. Can you please provide an update on when training materials and the LabView Libraries will be available?

In addition, in a previous post is was stated that he robot could be controlled by switches on the driver station. Does this imply that the driver station will not support joysticks?

[PHRED9]

Is there a SINGLE source (web page) I can go to to get a SINGLE detailed manual for the FRC controller and peripherals? I just don't have time to weed through hundreds of links to gather together small bits of information. Any help would be greatly appreciated.