I sent this off-list yesterday but since the topic is ongoing on the list now, i thought i'd throw my 2 cents in.
Hi Gregg, I could see where owfs would be benifical in robotics - mainly in environment & self system monitoring etc, but not in i/o control (yet anyway). I've tried owfs using small 8 bit (8 bi directional) and 16 bit (8 in & 8 out) io controllers but the delays are too great for motor/relay switching. I can see owfs in robotics being perfect in regards to the power management (ie: battery(s) level/load, charging status, misc temps, runtime calcs) and the A/D 1w stuff would be great for measuring volts/current on different circuits for fault protection etc. I think real-time A/D is a little too fast for owfs and parallel port/ISA/PCI/USB io seems to be the only way to do it (for now anyway). owfs and 1w devices would be handy for the robot-to-base interconnectivity as well. Something like a custom plug with ethernet and/or usb2 and a 1w that allows the robot to hotplug when it returns to base. The ethernet/usb could be just for large data transfers, and the 1w for system id/charging/monitoring - the robot could even be allowed to sleep (turning off ethernet/usb ports) and the 1wfs could trigger the system wake-up (a simple 1w switch connected to the robot pc's sleep button even) from a owfs master on the charging/base end. Another neat little owfs system could run and monitor the charging/base station as well. Thats pretty much my ideas on owfs and robotics, hope thats what you were looking for response wise. Happy to throw around some more ideas too. Regards, Rohan Murch. Alfille, Paul H.,M.D. wrote: > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Jan > Kandziora > Sent: Wed 4/12/2006 6:21 AM > To: owfs-developers@lists.sourceforge.net > Cc: Gregg Levine > Subject: Re: [Owfs-developers] Using One-Wire FS in a robotic system > > Am Mittwoch, 12. April 2006 05:54 schrieb Gregg Levine: >> Hello! >> Has anyone other then I considered applying the OWFS (CVS or a >> released version) in a robotic system? Comments, criticism, and even >> insults to be delivered off list, and this address. >> > Hi Gregg, why do you want to keep such an interesting discussion off this > mailing list? owfs-developers is low traffic, and I would find such a > discussion interesting to the general public here. > > Back to the topic: > > OWFS has some big pros when it comes to sensors. You could easily place > hundreds of sensors on the whole robot, making it "feel" the reality very > accurate. However, as the 1W is "low-speed", one has to think about proper > preprocessing of sensor data before applying to the 1W. But that may be a > good idea, too, as the robot has a lot of identical parts that way, making > it > kind of "fail-safe" > > On the output side, you will have a bunch of problems with the mechanical > and > electrical characteristics of the actuator itself. To avoid having a > microcontroller with each actuator, you'll have to use a low-latency host, > and high-speed host interface, which could do closed-loop steering in > <1ms. > 1W and an ordinary Linux host are a mile away from that, especially for > more > than one actuator. > > If we talk about self-learning robots, implementing reflex loops with > microcontrollers could be a goal, too. > > So in general, OWFS is good as a "supporting" system to the robot, not as > the > reflex system. > > Kind regards > > Jan > -- ----------------------------- -- > Nice analysis, Jan. Human sensation is also relatively slow, and works by > summation and rewiring. > > To push the analogy further, you could implement "spinal reflexes" -- > sensors > feed into regional centers for fine "unconscious control" while a > processed > signal is passed upwards. > > One interesting aspect would be finding a way to "autoconfigure" or > "autodiscover" the sensors, so that it isn't necessary to hard code each > serial > number. > > Paul > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ Owfs-developers mailing list Owfs-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/owfs-developers
