Robot Basic

erco

A new Robot "operating system" http://www.robotbasic.org/6.html described in September's Servo magazine: http://servo.texterity.com/servo/201209/?folio=60#pg60

The $70 chip sure promises a lot, likely too early to tell if it offers any real advantages. In the final "Limitations" section of Servo article, it reports a disappointingly slow 10 samples/sec using an embedded PC with Bluetooth. 40 samples/sec without BT, PC hardwired to the chip. Less than inspiring.

They sell 5-pack of imported SRF-04 ultrasonic modules for $75. Or get 'em off Ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5Pcs-Ultrasonic-Module-HC-SR04-Distance-Measuring-Transducer-Sensor-for-Arduino-/140763883586?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20c62e6842 The $64 you save will nearly pay for the $70 OS chip!

I have my doubts, Fortunato.

ratronic

erco I use the the latest version of RobotBasic to interface the Propeller chip with the joystick's,etc on my computer.

mindrobots

I've played with RobotBasic a bit. It appears to be a pretty full featured Basic with strong interfacing capabilities. One of their books even uses the Propeller as the micro-controller. I'm not sure about the RROS, I guess if you want a relatively easy plug and play robot environment.

The SRF-04 package sounds like "one heck of a deal"!!

GordonMcComb

The RROS chip is along the same lines as an Eddie board running RDS. If you prefer coding from a hardware level into a generic MCU, then neither is the ideal tool for you. But some folks like to start with ready-made components using software libraries others have created. That lets them concentrate on other aspects of the robot's design.

It's important to always remember not everyone has weekends of time to play and experiment. Full time students, especially, may only have a few hours a week to devote to a robotics project, cramming in time between classes and other homework. We may prefer everyone hand-code every bit of their robot control program, and build every bot from scratch using parts purchased from eBay Hong Kong, but that's not workable for everyone.

I haven't played with the RROS chip, though John has offered to send me a few for evaluation. But on the face of it, it looks interesting, and the $60 or $80 whatever is really their development time in providing the ready-made libraries, so that common hardware is plug-and-play. For example, it looks like they already have a beacon system worked out, and programming ready. It's not a feature for you, as you're preferring to design your own, but for others it could be useful.

Whether or not 10 or 40 samples per second is useful depends on what's being sampled. I seldom have need to sample a Ping more than 10 times a second, for example. Not sure it's really a limitation in the real world, but these things tend to be application-sensitive.

-- Gordon

john30340

Before you downplay the 10 samples per second, consider this. Parallax's published algorithm for reading a PING sensor requires an average of 8ms to read one sensor - so five sensors would take 40ms meaning most programmers using the standard algorithm without Bluetooth could not get more than 25 readings per second - LESS than the RROS chip is capable of without Bluetooth. Also, the RobotBASIC website explains that the Chinese manufacture of the ultrasonic modules appears to be dumping them at prices below what RobotBASIC pays their distributor - and RobotBASIC suggests you try those units if you can handle the 2-3 week shipping delay.