Success Stories: Supporting youth robotics competition with TI expertise and components
Texas Instruments is proud to be a FIRST Crown Supplier for the 2011 competition season; the highest contribution level a supplier can receive. TI's primary contribution are the Stellaris MDL-BDC "Jaguar" and MDL-BDC24 "Black Jaguar" Speed Controllers provided to FIRST for inclusion in FIRST's official FRC Kit of Parts distributed to more than 2,000 competing FRC teams around the globe – that's over 10,000 FRC mentors (engineering professionals / TI customers), 50,000 high school students (young engineers), and countless parents and volunteers that will actively use a Jaguar – thus TI – for the FRC build season and competition starting January 8, 2011.
FIRST is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1989 by Dean Kamen to inspire young people's interest and participation in science and technology. The focal FIRST program is FIRST Robotics Competition (a.k.a. "FRC"); a high school robotics competition where teams are provided an official FIRST Kit of Parts (about $6000 worth of equipment), game rules, and then 6 weeks to conceptualize, design, build, and postmark their competing robot to their preferred initial FRC Regional competition. There are approximately 40 regional competitions around the world spanning over 6 weeks, which lead up to a Championships Event held in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, MO on April 27-30, 2011. Learn more about this year's FRC game: LOGO MOTION™.
Based on Texas Instruments' powerful Stellaris 32-bit microcontrollers, the Stellaris MDL-BDC "Jaguar" and MDL-BDC24 "Black Jaguar" modules are intelligent, variable speed control and power drive for 12V and 24V brushed DC motors – with integrated features that allow the ability to easily control and entire network of Jaguars over CAN. While the products are designed for robust, real-time control and connectivity of high voltage/high-power motion control in a potentially "high-impact" and "noisy" robotics environment, each module is designed for simplicity and ease-of-use such that they are not intimidating for high school student to use in competition.
The MDL-BDC24 "Black Jaguar" is available and legal for use in the FRC 2011 competition, called LOGO MOTION™. Since TI is renowned for high precision analog solutions, the MDL-BDC24 incorporates several high-quality analog components from Texas Instruments, including the SN65HVD1050 CAN Transceiver, MAX3221 RS232 Line Driver/Receiver, TPS54040 Swift DC/DC converter, TPS73633 Voltage Regulator, and INA193 Current Shunt Monitor. At the heart of the MDL-BDC24 is TI's Stellaris LM3S2616 ARM Cortex-M3-based MCU.
MDL-BDC Jaguar was inspired by FIRST Robotics Team Mentors (working at TI) that envisioned a superior speed controller based on the advanced microcontroller technology for motion control. While envisioning this superior speed controller:
The MDL-BDC24 ships as a ready-to-run, yet customizable, module with the following features:
- Quiet control of brushed DC motors
- Three options for open-loop voltage control
- Industry-standard R-C servo type (PWM) interface
- Controller Area Network (CAN) interface
- RS232 serial interface
- Two options for closed-loop, speed, position, or current
control
- Controller Area Network (CAN) interface
- RS232 serial interface
- CAN communication
- Full configurability of module options
- Real-time monitoring of current, voltage, speed, and
other parameters
- Load firmware over RS232/CAN
- RS232 serial communication
- Bridges an RS232-enabled device to the CAN
- Directly interfaces to a PC serial port or National
Instruments cRIO
- Limit switch inputs for forward and reverse directions
- Firmware features
- Full configurability of closed-loop module parameters
- Real-time monitoring of sensor data including motor
current, encoder position or speed, and limit switch
state
- Status LED indicates run, direction, and fault conditions
- Motor brake/coast selector
- Quadrature encoder input (QEI) and analog input
- Color-coded screw terminals for all power wiring
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