David,

I like the way you explain the things, i don't feel bad if we are overlapping the same subjects, sometimes even if the subject is well known there is always space to learn.

i know the ROS away, and like you said SLAM and other modules are there once you master the knowledge, it's easy to put a robot to navigate in your office, avoid obstacles, locating and focus only in the proper actions like: Go to the Office X Ask for mail when you got the mail Drive back to me

I cant imagine the frustration if to do that i need to read encoder positions make calculations deal with unexpected obstacles etc.

I think we can agree there is a big gap regarding navigation, localization and other important tasks in EZ world no ?

before assuming that i got curious with kangaroo with control loop.

How other (members) EZ robots deal with navigation, are the robots confined to a controlled area ?

This is a huge topic that comes up often on the boards. Some have tried various things. Some have made roaming robots and such but nobody has yet made one that truly implements slam.

Here is why I think that is. The EZ-B controller uses wifi as its communication path back to the controlling computer. This path can get flooded and you know how much data is involved with SLAM. I suspect that it would flood the communications channel and make everything else real slow if not disconnect the V4. DJ is working on something that changes how much data can go through this path. To overcome this, I use USB from an on-board computer to control subsytems that help with SLAM and many other things. Really, I don't use the V4 much at all other than to allow other sensors to be added to my platform by end users. These other sensors can be accessed through scripts or through controls and gives the end user the ability to modify the bot without making any real changes to the core functions of the bot. I have taught 4th grade students to use ARC, so adding things should be simple enough for most people to handle.

The second reason that I see that this hasn't happened yet is because plugins just recently became available to be added by non-DJ-Personnel. This isn't a slam against DJ at all. I think that everything had to be controlled for a while, and DJ had a ton on his plate trying to do everything. Now that this is opened up to develop plugins for, I hope that people will do this for a few different reasons, but mainly to free DJ up to work on other things.

There are some who have done some things with SLAM type functions. Tony (Toymaker) has built a mapping and navigation module outside of ARC. DJ had done one inside ARC, but I have no clue where this project is. Basically, both build a map in an array, and then use that map for navigation.

The thing to remember is that scripts are not the only way to use ARC. The EZ-B isnt the only thing that you can control from inside ARC. There is a huge benefit to ARC outside of controlling the EZ-B, but most haven't realized it yet.

Here is something to wrap your head around...

ARC could be a subscriber or a publisher to ROS if a plugin were developed.

That's a Pandora Box

I read somewhere in the forums, DJ will release some kind of visual slam ... i don't know if is vaporware or a different thing.

Sometime ago i commented a post of yours, asking for an EZ roadmap.

I remember you started the raft bot, but in the last weeks, i think you changed the roadmap/direction no ?

Releasing small EZ Plugins, but the question is with free open source plugins how can that help build a raft bot/$$$ (probably this post should be moved to the raft bot thread... )

Not all will be free, only the ones that I used someone else's code in will be free. There are 3 plugins that have been written and not released to the public yet. The LIDAR module was my own but hoped that others would run with it to improve it. I seriously doubt that SLAM will be free, along with the parking sensors, arm and neck movement, facial recognition stuff that I am doing, EZ-AI and the ground height sensors.

Over time, I am sure they would become free to use except EZ-AI. I have costs associated with that that I wont be able to eat on my own.

The EZ-Roadmap should be to come up with better hardware, and let others develop new features as requested. If someone wants to sell it, they can. If they want to give it away they can. The roadmap for Rafiki has changed a bit in that instead of having a custom app outside of ARC that communicates to ARC, it will now all reside inside of ARC. I think this is the better approach from a development standpoint and from a support standpoint. It also lets people work in one environment instead of two or more.

BTW, just tested your code with one motor. ~38K per second reported. I am going to see if the flip flop works and then I will go to two motors.

flip flop works perfectly and smooths the numbers out. 17576 consistently per second with flip flop in. 38030 to 38150 without flip flop.

WHOOT!

Okay, two motors.

eh, 2 motors waits until tomorrow. Wife has spoken... Taking care of my health and all.