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Tue, 13 Nov 2007
First robot shipments; connector changes; firmware changes ...
First production SRV-1 Blackfin robots shipped to customers last week, and we're starting to work our way through the order backlog. It will likely take at least a month to catch up with existing orders and reservations, so we are grateful for everyone's patience. Please note that there has been a price increase on the robots to $465 for orders / reservations received after November 8, but the original price will be honored for the early orders and reservations.
For users who are anxious to start work with the Blackfin processor sooner, we are staying reasonable current with orders for just the SRV-1 Blackfin Camera board and WiFi radio board. The Blackfin PWM counters can be configured to drive other servo-style motor controllers, and we will work with users who want to interface the Blackfin to other motorized bases. We are also exploring the possibility of cooperation with other robot base manufacturers, since that is the main bottleneck in our production process.
There is one minor change relative to production configuration of the processor cards. While the stacking connectors work well for the radio and motor control boards, they are very difficult to solder to the processor card because of the amount of copper ground plane. Also, it is unlikely that boards will be stacked on top of the processor card, as this blocks access to the JTAG connector, jumper headers, and the possibility of orienting the camera parallel to the processor. As a result, we're going to replace the stacking connector on the processor card with a single 32-pin male header that mounts downward from the bottom of the card. The only functional impact is that boards will no longer be able to be stacked on top of the processor, but as noted, that's an unlikely configuration anyhow.
With regard to SRV-1 Blackfin firmware, we are now configuring the processor card to directly boot the SRV-1 firmware instead of going through u-boot. This greatly simplifies the issue of u-boot's autoboot sequence getting aborted by incoming data, and the SRV-1 firmware can start immediately with a 921kbps interface. Also, we have added the ability to upload boot images in the SRV-1 firmware via XMODEM-1K file transfer protocol. Enabling this transition is a new set of software tools from the Analog Devices uClinux group that supports the LDR boot file format. For users who want to use u-boot and linux, it's easy enough to upload the u-boot loader and overwrite the SRV-1 firmware, plus srv1.ldr as well as u-boot.ldr are compatible with the Blackfin's UART boot mode. In time, we will create a useful roadmap that shows how to navigate these options, but be aware that the Blackfin provides a rich set of configuration options.
One last note - we have posted another linux test image for the SRV-1 on http://www.surveyor.com/blackfin/. This version has Python built in. Our goal is to create something similar to the Myro robot environment onboard the SRV-1 using these tools, and we already have at least one developer working in that direction.
Posted Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:25 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...