Not able to use classmate PC as driver station !

[murthyz]

Hello there !

                    We tried setting up the robot for benchtop test using our 2009 robot and its code.We were unable to get the "Communication" and "Robot Code" LED's .Other things like DS radio,bridge,Robot and Ethernet link are working well.

But we were still able to deploy code into the crio successfully. Is there anything that needs to be done when code is being deployed through labview? and also

I would also like to know how to get the Classmate PC working as a driver station apart from logging into driver account. Any help in this issue is really appreciated.

Thanks,

Murthy

[jjauss]

This seems to be a reoccuring problem posted on several discussions on this site-

We have been able to successfully run the driver station/dashboard application and run our robot, but every 20-30 seconds, there is a 5 second lag where the driver station stops communicating with the router/bridge/cRIO.  The connection re-establishes itself shortly thereafter, with the time on the driver station being 5 seconds or so later.  The robot code and communication lights go from green to red for about 5 seconds, and then return to normal - the battery is fully charged at 12.1V, all updates are running properly - any help would be appreciated!

Team 1182

[NI-Bob]

Hello,

In order to run the Driver Station on the Classmate without being logged into the Driver Account you just need to run the Driver Station executable from the Developer Account.  The application looks the same as what is run automatically from the Driver Account and will work the same.

I do have a few more questions about the intermittent communication.  Are there any errors that are listed in the Driver Station when you see this behavior? There have been multiple posts in a few locations and I would like to try to clear this up and get detailed information in one location.  Do you see these same issues if you connect directly to the cRIO from the Driver Station?  I am wondering if this is something that only occurs during wireless communication.

I do know that last year there were some issues similar to this when the wireless radio was not placed in a proper location on the robot (towards the top, make sure it is not inside any metal casing).  Also, if there are multiple other wireless networks in the area there can be some issues communicating.  As I had said in just a previous post I will discuss this with our R&D team to see if there is anything else that I have not thought of yet.  Either way, we will work with you to make sure that you get everything up and running.

Thanks!
Bob H

NI FIRST Support

[jjauss]

Bob:

Thanks so much for the response - I will try and describe the situation as specifically as possible -

There are no errors listed in the driver station, except for the watchdog error described in other threads - this does not coincide with the intermittent contact, however.  The robot code and communications lights transition from green, to red, and back to green, giving control back after about 5 seconds.  The time freezes, and then progresses ahead 5 seconds -

If we connect directly to the cRIO, or go through the driver station classmate connected through ethernet, the intermittent contact is rare - but does occur occasionally, with the same phenomenon as described above -

We will move the radio to the top of the robot - unfortunately, it is within metal casing now, to protect its location - we have also tried to set the channel transmission and reception to one channel, instead of automatic, on both the router and radio, to assist connection - this seems to help a bit -

Thanks for any further advice you can offer - and for your time!

Team 1182

[NI-Bob]

Hello jjauss,

Thank you for giving me this information.  I would suspect that the reason you are seeing the major issues that you are currently seeing is because the gaming adapter is inside the metal case.  This can really wreak havoc on the communication.

There is a known issue that R&D is looking into in greater detail related to the System Watchdog.  Currently we would not expect the behavior that you are seeing.  At most we would expect to see a very very small blip in communication due to processing on the computer that is running the Driver Station.  We would expect the best results when running on the Intel Classmate.

In all reality this issue should not have an effect on the execution of the robot.  However, we do want to be aware of any issues like what you have described.  Please try running some more tests with the gaming adapter outside of the metal casing and let us know if you are still seeing this odd behavior.

I look forward to hearing from you!  Have a great day!

Thanks!

Bob H

NI FIRST Support

[jjauss]

Bob:

Thanks again for all of your help.  Once we set a static channel broadcast of 6 on our router, the bridge found it immediately, and we ran all day today with no further problem.  There seems to be, if the bridge is encased in metal, or if there is an existing wireless communication system in whatever building we practice in, an interference problem.  We ran the bridge within the metal casing, and as long as the broadcast channel was constant, we had good communication.  I am not sure if the automatic channel constantly alters in order to attempt to maximize the radio signal, but the bridge had issues finding it.

With the classmate running, ethernet wired into the router, we experienced no lag or drop in communication today at all.  If we run a PC, we receive the lag - will continue to use the Classmate with success!

Please keep us updated on the watchdog error -

Thanks again for your time - you have been a great help -

John Jauss with Team 1182

[NI-Bob]

Hello John,

I am glad to hear that you are currently up and running.  The issues that you have seen are the reason you are not supposed to bring your wireless router to the competition.  If there are multiple wireless networks that have all been configured for the same type of network you can start running into issues.  However, I am running a robot at NI where there are a few wireless networks that are configured differently and so I have not run into any major communication issues.  It is definitely something to look out for.

Continue using the Classmate currently in order to simulate the behavior you will experience when you are at a competition.  However, I am curious what the specifications for your laptop where you are seeing the lag (OS, processor, memory, brand, etc).  The one concern that I had is if you are having to constantly go through a firewall or something on that laptop it could be causing some of the lag issues you are seeing.

I will definitely keep you updated with any new findings/suggestions on our end.

Thanks!

Bob H

NI FIRST Support

[jjauss]

Bob:

Thanks again for your assistance - We will continue to use the bridge outside of the metal framing, and continue to use the Classmate.  We have disabled the firewall on the laptop and the router as well - with the firewalls in place, the communication does not seem to work at all.

We are using three new HP Compaq 6735b laptops, with 1.90 GHz AMD Athlon XZ Dual COre QL-60 processors, and 1.74 GB of RAM.

Keep us up to date - thanks!

John

[murthyz]

Hello Bob !

                I have this specific problem on our whole set up. The classmate is able to deploy the code into the FRC cRIO successfully.But the Robot code and communication  are still red.all other leds are glowing green except for I/O which we have not connected so far. The following are the ip configurations of our setup:

cRIO :10.16.77.2

bridge:10.16.77.1

router: 10.16.77.4

classmate :10.16.77.5

Also there was no information in the DS that reads about the cRIO's image version .We have updated the DS with the "2010update1.zip" and Labview with "2010update2.0.zip"

How could we get around this problem?.Any timely help will be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Murthy

[sciencewhiz]

murthyz wrote:

Also there was no information in the DS that reads about the cRIO's image version .We have updated the DS with the "2010update1.zip" and Labview with "2010update2.0.zip"

How could we get around this problem?.Any timely help will be really appreciated.

Did you reimage the cRIO after installing the LabVIEW update?