Slashdot Mirror
Bluetooth for Homebrew Robots?
MacGod asks: "As an extra-curricular for my university, I am working some other engineers to try and design a RoboSoccer Project (please don't wipe out our server if possible), with the hopes of entering the RoboCup tournament in the near future. We are currently using some low-frequency Abacom RF communication modules, but would like to able to go to BlueTooth if possible. However, I have found it nearly impossible to locate any suitable BlueTooth modules. We'd really like something that could be put onto a breadboard, and that would come with sufficiently detailed instructions that we'd be able to implement it without being BlueTooth experts. Any suggestion on homebrew BlueTooth solutions, Slashdot?"
Bluetooth modules for use with mobile robots
comp.robotics.misc has a few useful posts.
this post's author could be someone to ask?
Google's froogle feature is pretty cool, I found board-mountable bluetooth modules in less than 10 seconds (I had to resort by price).
Here's a Site that sells the modules.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
We are currently using some low-frequency Abacom RF communication modules, but would like to able to go to BlueTooth if possible.
Why Bluetooth? A better question would have been, "We are currently using some low-frequency Abacom RF communication modules, but would like increased range, bandwidth, and fidelity. Does anyone have any recommendations for a wireless technology which will meet these needs?"
Let the problem dictate the solution. It sounds like you're just itching to make use of Bluetooth because it's buzz-compliant.
Um you probably should have though of that before you post to /. That is like waving a red flag to a bull. Good luck!
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
(please don't wipe out our server if possible)
/., right?
Sounds like an exercise in futility. You do know this is
Well, i have a few bluetooth devices. As far as I know bluetooth's range is about 15 feet from your device. Now I'm sure you could boost it's range with antanas and such, but if you want something easy without needing to tweek, you might be looking in the wrong area. I'd go with just a regular wi-fi for robotics.
At uni we experimented with our lego mindstorms bricks and integrated/hacked in 802.11b to send/recieve commands/data to the units. /'s)
(apologies for the many
We played dungeons and dragons for 3 hours.....then i was slain by an elf
Here an interesting project that uses Bluetooth. Lego Robot.
Also here is a good overview of Bluetooth. Overview.
It is my sad duty to report the truth: I am a York Student and we do nothing cool. I will now regress into obscurity. Register at National Semiconductor for free, and they'll send you free demo chips and they'll ship it to you for free. Good luck...sounds cool!
Happiness is a slider variable
I don't know much about bluetooth but I remember a gameboy bluetooth setup that someone made for college. I was able to get a cached page of their bluetooth info here: http://216.239.51.104/search?sourceid=navclient-me nuext&q=cache:http%3A//www.it.lth.se/it/msprojects /ita/past/playmobile/html/4/index.html
h _d evelopment_platform/specifications_ericsson.html
t s/ prod_cat.jsp?oid=-10763
I did a search for the ericsson development kit that they used and found a few good links:
http://www.icr.a-star.edu.sg/cwci/hw2.htm
http://www.stonestreetone.com/products/bluetoot
http://www.infineon.com/cgi/ecrm.dll/ecrm/scrip
The team consists of 6 Ph.D faculty, and the vision subsystem description notes that:
There is a saying that is "more true" in engineering: Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.
Does anyone think these yahoo's have a chance of actually fielding a working robosoccer team? Maybe they plan on getting a bunch of students to do the lower level design & implementation work, but that won't solve the problem of first capturing a practical system design that might actually work...
If you're having trouble finding something to use, maybe it's not the way to go......like other posts state, the range and BW are limited.....I'm using a nice little device from Honeywell - ROC09352XMS which is a radio-on-a-chip device for my thesis... All you need is a microcontroller with an SCI interface (i.e. just about any PIC or 68HC11 device, which most people have some knowledge of), a power supply and an antennae - everything else is self contained - and it can range from 300-900Mhz, up to 19.2kBps.....at $26US a piece, not very expensive either.....
I think the only real gain you would have is low power consumption. With WiFi you'd be able to run multiple channels and have IP addresses. The documentation and know how on that is well established. Bluetooth is cute, but buggy, and it certainly isn't the pancea for all things short ranged and wireless.
Hello,
;-)
0 .h tml
p ro _wlsc.html
There do exsist small bluetooth modules, but not for what you want really. Bluetooth is fairly complex, and for small robots you'd be far better off designing your own protocol. And its more fun that way
But if you are dying for bluetooth, Google is your friend:
http://www.national.com/appinfo/wireless/LMX982
http://www.wirelessfutures.co.uk/products/prod_
I think there are others out there - I've heard of them before.
Remember this is from a university that has strengths in Agricultural Sciences, Veterinary and all around Tree Hugging. The computing department was absolutely dismal when I was a student there.
Not bad for a bunch of hick farmers if they can pull it off.
Have you though about using microwave communications? 28GHz ROCKS!
we, believe it or not, tried bluetooth for our vision->robot communication. my advice: try something simpler to just get your basic system running.
.. and drop us (site) an email if you have specific problems..
/me watches this comment be ignored.)
for example, we used Radiometrix RPC's for 4 straight years.. they are really limited but everyone uses them because their problems are well known in the league. all i can say is, good luck
-sergei (cornell robocup 2003,2004)
(sigh...
Actually that would be counter productive. I think most people will see the doorway page, see "flash required" and hit the back button. If they saw a text only link they would jump all over that pummeling it to death.
I'm doing some work with Bluetooth, using the CSR modules, "Casira" programmer, and the Bluecore programming tools. For simple stuff like headsets and RS232 links, you can run all the necessary code on the module.
For stuff based on CSR silicon, if I were doing things over, I'd go with the Siemens dev kit for their Siemo or Siemo2 modules. Same tools, more or less, but you're working with modules right away that you can spec into a final product. I didn't find them until I was looking for prequalified modules based on CSR's chipset...
Raise you're hand if you're one of those people who clicked the link to see whether the server had been swamped yet.... come on, be honest... that's what i thought.
It's not stupid. It's advanced.
Am I the only one who read that as "hebrew robots"?
I am working some other engineers
How brutally are you working them?
I'd help you, but since I'm on the RoboCup team at my school, I don't think that would be the best idea. ;)
NINJA SPIRIT - The Ancient Art of Insanity
Supposedly the real challenge was programming them to do the proper distinguishing between their signals and the cheers of the raving audience.
Personally, I wouldn't. Wifi has outrageous power demands (as is seen by how quickly it drains my laptop batteries), and increases the requirements of the host processor. For big robots that can afford an onboard laptop, this might be fine. For smaller ones running on PC104, you might manage. For microcontroller-based robots, forget it.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
wankers? WANKERS? That's lame... sorry, testing my new sig out.
SCO: 800-726-8649
Verisign: 800-361-8319, 888-642-9675
Diebold: 800-433-VOTE (8683)
I thought "Oh cool, a robot that will make beer for me, using bluetooth"
Sadly, the project page is Flash only, so I'll never know what the hell this is all about.
Hint: It's the WEB, moron. Use normal HTML like the rest of us. Flash is mainly used for annoying, intrusive, ads, which I do not allow on my machine. It's not a good basis for an entire website, no matter what the MacroMedia salesweasel, or MacroMedia-fed half-assed web designer tells you.
It's a crutch for the inept and useless. There are better tools for animation, and there are FAR better tools for websites.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Here's a url of something called "ZigBee." It might be what is needed. http://www.zigbee.org/
-- SYS 64738 --
if you don't want your server being hit, don't put a link to it on /. front page !
Better yet, if your page doesn't have a lot of large images, link to a Google cached page instead.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I have some pictures of the board on the coure web site. The bluetooth module is just above the "Rev B" sticker in the first picture.
Depending on your platform, it may be a lot easier to use 802.11b. I've built mobile robots around Ipaqs and Geode single board computers. Since both have pcmcia slots, adding wireless is simple.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
The only thing I have to add is that Bluetooth lies in the crowded 2.4 GHz. band that is used by 802.11b. The 2.4 GHz. band was very problematic for most teams that used it this year, as the entire place was filled with 2.4 GHz. devices. Imagine a hockey stadium filled with ~500 wireless laptops and base stations, ~100 802.11b wireless robots, ~300 wireless robotic dogs and about 600 other wireless robots using some other frequency.
Now most of these teams were using 802.11b, but even if you could coexist with 802.11b traffic you may not be allowed to use Bluetooth. If you were to play against another team using any technology in the 2.4GHz. band, one of the teams would have to switch to a different frequency. The contest (at least in the small-sized league) requires at least two capable frequencies for control.
At Cornell, we used three frequencies this year; 433 MHz., 868 MHz. and 914 MHz. We were lucky to have 868, as nobody else used that one at the competition.
-- Len
Have you considered using pre-existing hardware, such as the Sony Aibo? Their are a few models which migh meet your needs without any hardware development costs on your part.
...Unless of course your goal is to develop a superior (hardware wise) robot for robocup. ...in which case, nevermind. :-)
They have never been marketed in the US. (Japan only AFAIK), but the 311b and the 312b models are both bluetooth enabled. They could be imported from Japan if you can find them and are willing to pay the shipping.
On the otherhand, the 2xx series Aibo's have an internal pc-card slot intended for a specific form factor wifi-card (Orinoco chipset 802.11b cards work with built in driver). The card has to be completely contained inside the robot, so anything but the smallest of protruding antennas will be too much.
You might also be able to write your own bluetooth driver if you can find a bluetooth card that fits.
Sony even has an open-r SDK for programing the Aibo's (and according to Sony, future consumer robots) although their are alternative SDK's such as the Tekkotsu framework available.
By using Aibo's you could also make use of some of the existing Robocup codebase (which Sony has Opensourced). Why start from scratch if you don't have to?
Your site requires flash, you're posting it to slashdot, and you're asking us not to wipe out your server? *boggle*
My best suggestion (if you're really stuck on bluetooth) is to investigate parallax's basic stamp and bluetooth integration goodies; that's probably about as breadboardable and programmable as you could ask for. Genrally speaking, the prices are pretty decent too. Dont forget to investigate educational and bulk discounts :)
Death Dances Only With The Living
Either grab an issue of Circuit Cellar or try their site. They have yearly issue on wirless connection stuff and I think they have had a few articles on Bluetooth.
Goodluck!
I recommend using the Radiometrix RPCs. They work fine, they have enough bandwidth and low enough latency for the small size league (I assume you're entering small size), and they're reasonably priced. Entering RoboCup is incredibly difficult and expensive - don't make more trouble for yourself. Also, you'll be best off to direct future requests for advice to the official robocup mailing list of your choice. People there know stuff.
http://www.zeevo.com/
They make a cool Bluetooth SoC that includes not only the RF chunks and necessarily Bluetooth hardware, but also an embedded ARM7TDMI processor core and flash, all on the same chip.
The only problem is getting them to talk to you. I'm an EE for a $20 billion/year Fortune 500 that's currently working on a Bluetooth experiment, and the damned rep won't even return an email to myself or one of my fellow engineers. So all I have to play with is a module I "harvested" from another prototype device from another group. Arg!
blue tooth modules for small runs, prototyping here: http://www.flint.co.uk/products/index.php?manufact urer=all&sg=§ion=Communications+and+Wireless&r ange=Bluetooth+Radio+Systems&pID=000000904
" * The ISM is a Bluetooth Class 1 Module designed to plug into a host motherboard for evaluation purposes or small production runs, it can then be transferred into full volume production with the minimum of design requirements avoiding any lengthy design cycles and lowering design costs dramatically
* Bluetooth 1.1 pre-qualified Class 1 - +6dBm
* Fully pre-approved - no Bluetooth or RF knowledge required from integrator
* Data transfer rates up to 200,000 bps
* Range in excess of 100 metres open field
* Stand-alone module with integral TDK ceramic antenna providing excellent interference rejection - ideal for noisy environments
* Very simple integration with existing embedded application
* Hayes AT style command protocol - no Bluetooth knowledge required
* Serial Port Profile & Audio Profile on module
* Serial Port Profile removes need for Bluetooth pairing, alternatively, security features such as PIN and pairing can be added simply by configuration through the S registers
* Bluetooth activity displayed via 2 LEDs
* All I/O lines accessible via S registers using the AT protocol
* AT Command Set - behaves like modem - Bluetooth stack is made intelligent
* 100m range, but low power - achieved with CSR 2nd generation leading BC2 silicon chipset and TDK ceramic high gain antenna
* Fastest implementation - because no Bluetooth knowledge is required, applications are very fast to develop - excellent time to market
* Interoperability - utilities available to integrate with PC's, PDA's and mobile phones
* No microprocessor or extra Flash- fully implemented within virtual machine, full Bluetooth stack embedded in module - no external stack required
"
list price was 129.00
So you enable your team to communicate to each other and/or a central strategist (bigger CPU), are there prohibitions against your opponent talking to or coopting your players ? A simple game of soccer (or football as the Euros would call it) could rapidly change over a season or two into a full blown Robowar league with the added attraction of opponents trying to mind control infect thier opponents. Could get too multifacted for a simple conflict.
Yup, that will help when submitting a story to Slashdot.
I've used Stonestreet One eval units for a similar purpose. Nice documentation and easy to work with.
m l
http://www.stonestreetone.com/products/index.ht
Having just woken up, my sleep-addled brain parsed the headline for this story as being about robots that make homebrew-as-in-beer...
:-)
Now that would be cool, eh?
CC-licensed translations of Japanese fiction: http://tonygonz.blogspot.com/
T ake a look at the Intelegent Serial Module from TDK, www.tdksys.com it is easy to contoll with AT commands and implements a serial port interface. Halam
If you don't specifically need Bluetooth, you could use 802.11b - someone has written a TCP/IP stack for the 18F452 PIC, that will access either a 8139 Ethernet chip or a PRISM2 chipset 802.11b card. This corresponds to some of the cheaper wifi cards - I can look up the names if anyone is curious.
The source code costs about 60UKP and supports SMTP, DHCP, UDP, TCP, HTTP, and some other random protocols. I'm using them in a network of robots that can all have their own IPs and websites (On an IIC EEPROM)
Good for you, but you seem to be the one complaining.
The goal of Robocup Junior is to introduce some electromechanical concepts to high school students. It isn't much beyond that.
The team that posed the question about Bluetooth is entering into the small sized class, a research vehicle. Here, communication is necessary, no vital. We have to deal with interference on several levels, or we fail.
Don't get me wrong, there were some impressive "robots" in the Junior competition this year. The problem there just doesn't hold a candle to what this team will have to do to be competitive.
-- Len
I don't think that we needed a 1m antenna either, but I'm a ME, so what do I know ;^)
-- Len
Hello! TDK Systems has a Bluetooth Module with an integrated BT stack and a serial interface. The module measures 69 x 20mm (about 2 x 0.75 in). With the RS232 style interface it uses modem style AT commands for commands/control and hence can be up and running working with a host in a very short space of time. It is a Class 1 preapproved device (100m range) but the antenna and great receiver we have gives us up to 200m range. Its called a blu2i module on the website. Hope that is interesting for you.
Whoever modded this troll is a turd. Isn't everyone on /. aware of our aversion to Flash by now? Oh yea, we're all (mostly) Windows weenies =D. Hint to the Windows users: Flash player on Linux sucks.