RC Electrical RFID2014

Overview

Keeping track of robots and their statuses is vital to success. By adding RFID tags to the robots, we can have a common method of identifying a particular robot from a variety of systems including the base station and the control board.

Uses

• Automatic lookup from a robot data table
• Automatic robot ID detection
• Dot pattern image generator

Considered Implementation

We are currently considering adding an RFID tag to the inside of the shell of the robot. This would allow the control board to read from the tag to retrieve the corresponding dot pattern and its robot number (this will eliminate the need for a rotary switch being set to the correct number). The robot can still be scanned by an external reader (e.g. base station computer) to check its status from a spreadsheet and report if the robot is in working condition. An RFID scanner will need to be added to the 2014 control board, and a small program needs to be created to retrieve information from a spreadsheet.

Robot Status Spreadsheet

The program will pull the following information from the spreadsheet:

• Last update
• Current condition (Ready, Incomplete, Repair, etc.)
• Control board number
• Kicker board number
• Mechanical base number
• Robot ID

Dot Pattern Generator

If we need to change the dot pattern on a robot, it is helpful to have the chart of the 16 dot patterns and their corresponding numbers. What'll be even more helpful is a single image that pops up once you scan the shell. The robot status spreadsheet will already contain the robot ID, so the program will only need to show the corresponding image after retrieving information from the spreadsheet.