Revision as of 15:17, 17 October 2011

Project Brainstorming

So, what do you all think about a processor choice? There are several options for ARM Processors. The Cortex-M series seems to be at the level at which we need our processor to be at, though I will need to read more on it and the other processors.

--Jason

We will use RTL 8181 SOC chip with two integrated Ethernet MACs and a WLAN 802.11b controller embedded onto a single chip. 

This is Linux for This chip rtl8181.sourceforge.net/

RTL8181 Datasheet www.wireless.org.au/~jhecker/rtl8181/RTL8181_DataSheet_1.01.pdf

NXP SA2400ABE Transceiver datasheet pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/view/119823/PHILIPS/SA2400ABE.html

---Tan Pin Siang (HKUST)

I think we are leaning more toward connecting an ARM processor to a separate wifi module. We will be meeting on 9/23 to discuss this further. As we talked about in the teleconference, our teams don't have to have the same processors as long as we agree on the protocols. We will being doing some more research on the RTL8181, however.

--Jason

Hi everyone,
This could be one additional option for a processor http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/microcontroller/arm_stellaris/overview.page?DCMP=Luminary&HQS=Other+OT+stellaris It's a TI microcontroller with an ARM Cortex M3 processor. I think that we may have looked at this during our meeting on Friday. It has embedded ethernet which would be nice. This is a development board for it as well - http://www.ti.com/tool/ek-lm3s6965

Also, we should probably agree on what the car should be able to do:
- Are we going to have both of the cars each host different web pages or will there be one central web page?
- video camera on board?
- other things such as sensors to check for imminent collisions?
-anything else that I didn't think of...

--Scott

Scott, that's what pretty much what I was thinking - the 9000 series has 8 PWM outputs, plenty for our needs

Many of the other processors in the M series have similar characteristics. What about a wireless module? There are a ton of options for that. That may be less important than the processor choice, as most wireless modules use a UART or something similar to communicate with the processor.

Something similar to http://www.ti.com/product/wl1271-tiwi, which has pre-integration with some ARM processor families may be of interst.

The processor family that you suggested has plenty of inputs for sensors, which I think would be a very appropriate add-on for the latency that will be involved.

The video camera on board is a very good question. That would take a lot of processing if went through our system. I'm not sure what I think about that at this point.
--Jason

Tan Pin Siang, Are you all set on your processor choice (RTL8181)? We are concerned about the support and availability, as in it is not available in the US. Our teams don't have to have the same processor, but it would be nice if we encounter problems.
--Jason

Hey guys, I haven't had a chance to look at the specs of all the different 9000 series processors, but from looking at them briefly i agree with you all that this looks like a good choice. Scott like you said, the embedded ethernet is really nice and i think the USB connection will be very handy too. As far as the questions that you brought up, i think for convenience sake that one central website would be ideal, but i don't think that it's necessary. I think it would be easier on us to just set up our own site. So i think a central website is desired, but not really a must have for us, at least for now. Maybe we can work on that once we get the majority of our goals reached. For the video camera on board, i'm not entirely sure how the processor works, but would we be able to just hook the webcam up to the on board USB? I can understand how if possible, that would take a lot of processing though. Maybe if that would take too much processing, we could just hook the webcam up to a computer and point it at an area that our vehicle can move and broadcast that on the website. That way we could see it moving, but the processor on the vehicle won't have to handle that load. And like you said Jason, since it has plenty of inputs, i don't see why we couldn't hook up some sensors on the vehicle. I'll keep looking into the processors and all that, but this is all i have for now.

--Chris

Everyone, please see the updated system diagram--> System Diagram This is obviously a simplification of the interconnections, but it at least presents our general ideas at this point. Please respond with your feedback.

--Jason

One topic brought up is the possibility of having a wireless camera on-board rather than integrating a camera through the wireless transceiver that will be receiving control information for the vehicle. If this is something that can be integrated into the website (as in we can feed that video to the site) I think this would be a nice alternative.

--Jason

This camera looks like it could be an option: http://foscam.us/foscam-fi8918w-wireless-ip-camera-11.html . I'm not sure how easy it would be to interface with our website though.

-Scott

I think we should use the MCBSTM32EXL develoment board. It has some things we don't need but it has the most online support and a ton of example programs. That camera may work if we can configure it to work with the site - also this one looks pretty good http://www.axis.com/products/cam_m1011w/index.htm

--Jason

Here are possible wireless transceivers:

http://www.digi.com/products/wireless-wired-embedded-solutions/zigbee-rf-modules/point-multipoint-rfmodules/xbee-wi-fi#models

http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/112

We just need to pick one or two to get and start prototyping.

http://www.raidentech.com/sptwo2aircta.html
^Vehicle Platform? haha

--Jason

The RN-XV WiFly Module on sparkfun looks like it might be a good option. It's really cheap and seems very easy to use. Love the vehicle platform haha. Did we pretty much decide that we're going to buy an existing car and take it apart? Also, that camera looks good. It looks as though it might be a bit easier to integrate into the website than the foscam one but I'm not really sure. I'm still working on getting the softaware for the development board on a VIP computer so we can start doing something.

--Scott

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