New Field Control sytem for VEX Worlds 2022

[levipope]

@sazrocks

@levipope

(Link to site in work) https://vrcfieldapp.vex.com

This link doesn’t work for me, I’m assuming that the website isn’t ready yet?

If a team is using two controllers for one robot (master/partner joystick), does it matter which joystick is plugged into the field control?

The site link has now been updated.

[John_Sutera]

Will prerelease tm or tm for raspberry pi be available for teams/eps to test with to prepare for worlds?

[Dave_Flowerday]

@John_Sutera

Will prerelease tm or tm for raspberry pi be available for teams/eps to test with to prepare for worlds?

There are no plans for any additional TM releases prior to Worlds. However, you don’t need to use TM to test. As detailed above, you can run the field controller program on another brain and control it from the brain GUI. From the perspective of your controller, it functions the same way.

[John_Sutera]

It was more for scrimmages like many teams will be hosting it would be preferable to have a close as possible analog for worlds TM Displays and Smart Field Control System alike.

[Harik_Sodhi]

@levipope

Yes. Connect your robot to your Laptop

On the website, it says to connect to the brain. What if our brain has no micro USB Port (totally not our team playing with it in September) and we only use the port on the controller? Would there be any possible way to run it?

[jpearman]

@Harik_Sodhi

On the website, it says to connect to the brain. What if our brain has no micro USB Port

Just so we are on the same page.

The field control program should not be installed on your robot. The field control program is installed on a separate V5 brain that will act as a field control system.

There is an assumption, and we probably should have made that clear, that the brain used to run the field control program should be updated to the latest vexos, version 1.1.1. You need to have a functional USB port on the brain to be able to do that. That means that a V5 brain without a USB port and possibly on an old version of vexos cannot be used to test the field control system.

If the V5 brain on your robot has a broken USB port, is not updated to vexos 1.1.1 and you are competing at worlds in Dallas, that’s an issue. If it’s not possible to replace the V5 with a good one you will need to visit technical support at the event and we will see if we can find an alternative way to update the V5 brain.

[kmmohn]

@jpearman

separate V5 brain that will act as a field control system

So we now have a use for V5 brains with most of the ports burned out

[jpearman]

@kmmohn

So we now have a use for V5 brains with most of the ports burned out

What do you think we use for testing ?

You will see from the screen shots that there are groups of five ports assigned to the robots. The first robot in the red alliance can plug into any of ports 1 through 5, the second one uses 16 through 20. As long as at least one port is working out of the five, that brain could be used.

[sazrocks]

@jpearman

The field control program should not be installed on your robot. The field control program is installed on a separate V5 brain that will act as a field control system.

The OP does say

@levipope

Will I be able to test with the Smart Field Controller app before worlds?

Yes. Connect your robot to your Laptop/PC via USB cable and then navigate to:

I can’t really imagine a scenario in which downloading the program to the actual robot brain would be useful so this should probably be changed to say something like “connect a spare V5 brain (not the one on your robot) to your Laptop/PC…”.

[levipope]

@sazrocks

I can’t really imagine a scenario in which downloading the program to the actual robot brain would be useful so this should probably be changed to say something like “connect a spare V5 brain (not the one on your robot) to your Laptop/PC…”.

Yes, you are correct about that. I will clear that up in the post.

[Foster]

So if I was doing forward thinking for the 2022-2023 season, should I plan on getting set up to use the new control system? If so, how many of the V5 brains per field, what kind of connections, etc.

[lacsap]

It would be one brain connected to rPi (or computer you currently use to control fields) using micro-usb port … rPi example, will interface with TM …

Not sure when they plan to make this new field control hardware available to EPs. I expect to hear more after Worlds.

[sazrocks]

@levipope

The field brain connects to the smart port on the V5 controllers to pass not only the same field state information as the old system but also additional data like the match clock time.

What is done with this information? Is there any way to access this information from user code?

@levipope

The field brain also connects to the Tournament Manager software so all this information can now be displayed on the field monitor to allow the referees to know if all systems are good to go before the match starts.

Is this information simply passive for referees (displaying on the TM field screen) or are there software lockouts that will prevent the match from playing without e.g. all user programs being started? Really I want to know what happens in a couple scenarios:

1. If a robot is not present for a match, the match will still be able to be run, correct?
2. If a team elects not to start their program (they don’t want to run their autonomous so as not to interfere with their partner’s autonomous, etc.), can the match still be run?

Separately, relating to VAIC, will this new field control system be used to facilitate the communication between VAIC robots?

[nnolte]

@levipope

For VRC matches, each driver’s station will have two smart cables. It does not matter which cable you use. Blue team cables will be at the blue team’s driver station and the red team’s cables will be at the red team’s driver station. You can connect one of the smart cables to either of the two smart ports on your V5 controller.

Are these cables going to be standard V5 smart cables that home-run to the field control V5 brain? Will it be recommended/required that they be made out of official V5 smart cable stock? They will need to be long to reach to both sides of the field.

[lacsap]

@nnolte

Are these cables going to be standard V5 smart cables that home-run to the field control V5 brain? Will it be recommended/required that they be made out of official V5 smart cable stock? They will need to be long to reach to both sides of the field.

The cables must be V5 Smart Cables. Length will need to reach team controller from FIeld Controller is located.

[sazrocks]

I think the question was more relating to the issue that VEX only sells smart cable in lengths of 24’, meaning that if each alliance station is 12’ from the brain, plus is ~3’ tall and there need to be another 3’-4’ of slack to go to driver controllers, each field will require at least 4 separate rolls of the smart cable stock.

Really, since the smart cables aren’t trying to drive something like a motor, any correctly sized 4 conductor cable seems to me like it should work, at least electrically.

Also not sure how I would feel about events having to crimp their own cables…

[15545G-SC]

Will this still work with two controllers? We use two, but still have a free smart port on each controller. Will we need to connect a cable to each controller, or only controller 1?

[sazrocks]

@levipope

You should always connect the field control cable to the V5 controller that has the radio connection to the robot. So if you are using a dual controller setup make sure you plug the field’s smart cable into the controller that is paired with the robot.

[15545G-SC]

I did not see this when I read through, thank you for the clarification.

[sazrocks]

I missed it the first time too, there’s lots of information in this post to absorb.

That’s a good thing though