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BeagleBone Blue – A complete, Linux-enabled robotics computer
- adityapatadia 10y agoCheck this library if you want to interact with BB: https://github.com/theoctal/octalbonescript https://github.com/theoctal/octalbonescript
- lima 10y agoSounds great for ArduPilot.
- dharma1 10y agoHow is ArduPilot going after the 3DR/Linux foundation drama?
- anujdeshpande 10y agoPretty good actually - http://ardupilot.org http://ardupilot.org Setup a proper organisation, with proper ways to handle commercial interests, etc.
- anujdeshpande 10y agoDamn right - https://github.com/mirkix/ardupilotblue https://github.com/mirkix/ardupilotblue Looks like it works right out of the box with ardupilot's git head
- andmarios 10y agoThe title is a bit misleading, this Beaglebone iteration is oriented towards robotics mainly. It can do autopilot but not without external hardware (e.g GPS). It does have hardware useful in robotics though that common autopilot boards miss. It is very interesting and the price point is good (about €80). A thing that troubles me is that, with a very quick look, I couldn't find a nice programming guide. Recently I switched to Raspberry Pi 3 with a Navio2 HAT for an autopilot project. Whilst the Navio2 hardware may be expensive and closed, their software and documentation are top notch. They provide their own rasp pi distro, with code examples for accessing all sensors and even expose some of the hardware in sys-fs.
- mr337 10y agoSame here, I was looking at the PRU and was completely lost on to how to program and utilize them. I ended up going Navio2 and haven't looked back. Also the RPI3 is powerful enough to run list ROS tasks.
- lsaferite 10y agoHere are some resources you could use to get started. https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/586.php https://www.embeddedrelated.com/showarticle/586.php http://elinux.org/ECE497_BeagleBone_PRU http://elinux.org/ECE497_BeagleBone_PRU http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU_Linux_Application_Loader_API_Guide#prussdrv_map_prumem http://processors.wiki.ti.com/index.php/PRU_Linux_Applicatio... http://hackaday.com/2014/06/22/an-introduction-to-the-beaglebone-pru/ http://hackaday.com/2014/06/22/an-introduction-to-the-beagle...
- fisherjeff 10y agoI'd add Ken Shirriff's guide to that list: http://www.righto.com/2016/09/how-to-run-c-programs-on-beaglebones.html?m=1 http://www.righto.com/2016/09/how-to-run-c-programs-on-beagl...
- workerIbe 10y agoI think they are running on pi 2 but their hardware is open http://www.dronin.org http://www.dronin.org flyingPi
- ajross 10y ago> They provide their own rasp pi distro The story of why this world of "linux" machines is a disaster in seven words. I'm sure this new BeagleBone is just a tarball flinger too.
- joezydeco 10y agoTI (manufacturer of the core on the BeagleBone line) has much better Linux support than the generic SoC makers out of Asia. https://git.ti.com/sitara-linux https://git.ti.com/sitara-linux
- _pmf_ 10y agoHere's an idea: create a subscription service that signs me up for 20 USD per month and gets me the latest hip boards in a reasonable time frame (I realize that this specific board is outside of this price range).
- trome 10y agoYour gonna end up with a bunch of Amlogic, Allwinner & Rockchip boards with little to no software support unless you get a bunch of H3 based Allwinner boards. Most of what is out there is nothing to write home about, the decent stuff (eg. OrangePi PC) is either pure luck, or browbeating by the community (OrangePi+ 2e) with the occasional vendor like FriendlyARM coming in using SOCs that the community mainlined support for. Then you have incompetent vendors like Olimex, Pine64, Next Thing Co (of C.H.I.P., the "$9" SBC) that fuck up the hardware, software, or both, and forget critical stuff like heat spreading copper layers in the SBC (Olimex), misroute ethernet so it can't actually do a gigabit a sec (Pine64), or lie about SOC software support and scramble to port the closed blobs that make their board work forward (Next Thing Co).
- buserror 10y agoYou are bit hard on Olimex -- to be fair, they release hardware specs, schematics and so on well in advance, and in true 'open hardware' form -- so nothing stops you actually reviewing and/or fixing it if you get a chance! I've used quite a few Olimex boards for pretty serious work project, often as a prototype before we settle on a 'real' hardware to develop, and I've always been very pleased with what I've got. Altho, I haven't bough any of their 'really fancy' boards lately. Disclaimer: I was the one who rewrote and upstreamed the original Mini2440 'friendlyarm' board.
- elijahparker 10y agoI'm a big fan of Olimex and have been impressed overall by the reliability of their boards, and I really appreciate the openness of their hardware and development process (e.g., you can check out eagle files for boards that haven't event been released yet and provide feedback)
- MayeulC 10y agoOh my. This looks perfect to replace the plethora of daughter boards I usually have in my robotics projects: encoders, power boards for DC and servo motors, I/O boards. This also looks clearly oriented towards drones, and seems to have a lot of potential in that regard. To be fair, I was also recently considering switching to other, more integrated boards recently; but this one seems particularly well tailored to my use case, at a decent price, and (perhaps more important in some regard) open source. I didn't read the full specification, the only thing I am worried about is the maximum power draw (especially for DC motors). I also usually use 24V PSU/batteries, but that's only a minimal inconvenience.
- tyingq 10y agoWas initially confused, because there was an earlier "BeagleBone Blue" (well, BlueSteel, I guess) that had nothing to do with robotics: http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/06/18/bluesteel-basic-beaglebone-black/ http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/06/18/bluesteel-basic-beagl... The interesting part of this one, to me, is the Octavo packaging of the AM335X processor with on-die RAM. That makes the board much simpler. Though, I thought it would make a bigger difference in price. The BeagleBone wireless that uses the same chip is ~$68, which is $7 higher than the Black that has separate RAM. If you haven't used a BB product, check out the thing that I think is the biggest upside of these...the built in pair of PRUs. It's like having the best of a normal linux board plus a microcontroller on the same board. Since the PRU shares memory with the main CPU, you can offload things that need to be realtime. That allows for things like a near professional-level LED matrix controller (https://trmm.net/LEDscape https://trmm.net/LEDscape) or even a DIY video controller (https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video).
- kogepathic 10y ago> If you haven't used a BB product, check out the thing that I think is the biggest upside of these...the built in pair of PRUs. Allwinner SoCs have an OpenRISC microcontroller used for managing deep sleep modes. [0] I don't think anyone has figured out how to use it for other tasks yet, but it would be really great if there were more SoCs that included these kind of companion cores. [0] http://linux-sunxi.org/AR100 http://linux-sunxi.org/AR100
- tyingq 10y agoOh, wow...companion core in a cheap board would be popular if someone figures out how to leverage it. The OrangePI Allwinner boards are amazingly inexpensive...$10 shipped, including WiFi (https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/New-Orange-Pi-Zero-H2-Quad-Core-Open-source-development-board-beyond-Raspberry-Pi/1553371_32760774493.html https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/New-Orange-Pi-Zero-...) Related, the lowRisc RISC-V project has a concept of minion cores: http://www.lowrisc.org/docs/memo-2014-001-tagged-memory-and-minion-cores/ http://www.lowrisc.org/docs/memo-2014-001-tagged-memory-and-...
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- gte525u 10y agoThe page linked seems to indicate a cortex-M3 on there somewhere. I don't see it in the OSD3358 docs or on the BOM. Anyone know if that's a mistake?
- fnj 10y agoThe main CPU is a Cortex-A8. In additions, there is a PRU-ICSS (Programmable Real-Time Unit Industrial Communication Subsystem), which has two 32-bit RISC cores. The latter can handle hard real-time intricacies without any latency from the A8. It is what sets this board apart from the simple-minded Raspberry Pi and other boards. In practice, you can use the A8 as if the PRU is not there for 99% of what you want to do. You can also get into programming the PRU itself, but this is very much for the advanced user. BTW, I don't see the PRU referred to anywhere else as "Cortex-M3". https://www.element14.com/community/community/designcenter/single-board-computers/next-gen_beaglebone/blog/2013/05/22/bbb--working-with-the-pru-icssprussv2 https://www.element14.com/community/community/designcenter/s...
- ajross 10y agoThere are two lines in the spec summary. The PRU is one, a Cortex M3 is another. It's not unliklely that the SoC indeed has both, intending the ARM for use as a very low power, always-on sensor listener (e.g. the DSPs that handle audio and sensor input on phones so they can wake up the main CPUs for gesture or voice recognition).
- fnj 10y agoExcept the datasheet [0] does not list anywhere "Cortex-M3", nor reference any ARM cores other than the Cortex-A8. So if it is there, they are keeping it a deep secret. [0] http://octavosystems.com/octavosystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/OSD335x-Datasheet.pdf http://octavosystems.com/octavosystems.com/wp-content/upload...
- mrob 10y agoIt's used for power management, and it's listed in the full Technical Reference Manual, page 1172: http://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/spruh73 http://www.ti.com/lit/pdf/spruh73
- ritonlajoie 10y agoDoes anyone has a list of websites reviewing all those kind of boards ?
- acdha 10y agoHow's the BeagleBone quality these days? I bailed a couple of years ago in the Black era after fighting with the buggy serial hardware which required a full power-cycle to recover from faults, and getting tired of the process needed to upgrade the boot flash without bricking the system.
- dhess 10y agoI have fried one or two, but it was my own fault each time. (Do not connect the +5v from the barrel connector to the GPIO pins!) I use a BB Black in an outdoor location and it runs 24/7 with no hitches, and has been for months. It's in San Francisco and it's inside a control box, so not the most extreme conditions, but it has survived all the recent wet weather and hot days last summer with aplomb. edit: I have flashed the firmware numerous times on several boards and have never had an issue.
- karmajunkie 10y agoArrow is running a special—the BeagleBone Blue for ~$77 with free shipping and a free raspberry pi 3. Just in case you were on the fence about picking on up... https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bbblue/beagleboardorg https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bbblue/beagleboardorg
- comboy 10y agoArgh, they won't accept my password with special characters, number, uppercase letter and lower case letter, with error that "password must contain at least one number, upper case letter and lower case letter". How stupid is that. But good for me because I paused shopping to vent here and I realized I may actually not need it that badly having enough MCUs at home already.
- shamaku 10y agoIt's like you're fishing. For what, exactly..., one can only speculate. My point is that you've added no value and chose instead to please your own little ego with this drivel.
- jameskegel 10y agoI'm not sure if this comment contributes to the discussion
- coolnow 10y agoThen maybe remove and replace the special characters?
- noir_lord 10y agoBusiness partner has been talking about building a CNC router, this thing is basically perfect for that.
- technofiend 10y agoNow if only ¨they¨ would re-release R2D2 I´d have the perfect project board for the perfect project bot. But at $500 plus I´m not to inclined to get the sawzall and soldering iron out. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002KHN23S/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002KHN23S/ref=dp_ol...
- VLM 10y agohttps://astromech.net/ https://astromech.net/ They're a little weird about joining before access is granted to see the goodies and get involved in the group buys and so forth. I've been meaning to get started on a styrene laser cut but... life, infinite number of things to do, its warming up outside so I'm more motivated to daydream about my electric bicycle conversion plans so maybe next winter, etc. I don't see the point in spending $600 for anything but a 1:1 scale model, and conveniently you're looking at "high three figures" for styrene unlike the $2K or so for all aluminum. Also a lot of cost depends on insistence on perfection delivered today vs "ah I'll put that detail on next winter" attitude. There's a big cost difference between "I'm building a droid that looks like its in the R2 family from 50 ft away" vs "I am making a droid that is so good that it could be used in a hollywood movie as a prop if not main character"
- nojvek 10y agoThis is awesome. Although for any modern robotics project you definitely need a powerful gpu. What's the support on the board to hook up an external gpu?
- eriknstr 10y agoLooking at the kinds of projects they have show on the page, it seems that a GPU is not useful for most of those. For the projects where you would benefit from a GPU, you could perhaps commicate with a bigger computer that does the calculations? Too much latency for some applications of course but not for others. If your project really needs a GPU and it needs it on the device that is controlling the robotics components, I think probably something other than the BB Blue would be more appropriate.
- monocasa 10y ago> Although for any modern robotics project you definitely need a powerful gpu. Wat. I know this is hacker news, but not every project requires a DNN.
- anujdeshpande 10y agoBeagleboard is part of GSoC '17 - so if anyone has any cool open source project ideas using BB Blue, please do suggest at http://bbb.io/gsocideas http://bbb.io/gsocideas
- TeMPOraL 10y agoThe board photo seems to call it BeagleBonBlue. Ouch.
- Animats 10y agoAh, a board with R/C PWM servo ports. That's a 1970s interface which should have been replaced by now. There are servos with a bidirectional serial interface, so you can ask what the actuator is doing, but they're overpriced.[1] They're about 5x-10x as expensive as standard R/C servos. There was an open source project, OpenServo, to do something about this, but it was done by 2008 and seems to be dormant. [2] There's no multi-manufacturer standard for servos above the dumb level. Annoying things in low-end robotics: 1) motor controllers with significant power handling cost too much, although this is improving, 2) encoders cost too much, although they're simple and every mouse wheel has one, and 3) encoders are usually fragile plastic add-ons to motors with strong metal cases, instead of being integrated inside the motor case. [1] http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/robotis-dynamixel-robot-servos.aspx http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/robotis-dynamixel-robot-ser... [2] https://openservo.org/ https://openservo.org/
- cr0sh 10y ago> motor controllers with significant power handling cost too much, although this is improving There are more than a few h-bridge ICs out there that can easily control many amps of current; Infineon's BTN89xxx line is fairly popular, but there are others. Many can be found as "breakout boards" on Ebay and other places. They'll usually control 12-24vdc @ 40A and more; they are MOSFET devices (n-channel, integrated high-side pumps, etc). These boards are fairly cheap. Now, an h-bridge of course doesn't make a motor controller, but it is the most difficult piece of the puzzle, and perhaps the most expensive part (in terms of electronics hardware and developing one - because frying MOSFETs or IGBTs in the process of development can add up quickly). The rest is monitoring and code (basically using a microcontroller to interpret control signals and feedback signals from current, encoders, etc - implement PID as needed for speed or other control, overcurrent monitoring, etc). Of course, none of this will match the capabilities of a Roboteq or Vantec motor controller - but you won't be spending several hundred dollars, either. These lower end devices and designs (and there are other companies that make lower-end controllers, like Dimension Engineering and others) are more than enough though to control electric wheelchair motors (but if you want proven "bulletproof" controllers, spend the money). And if you are really cheap or want to experiment? Pick up some cheap logic-level high-amperage N-channel mosfets off ebay (or other places), parallel them together for more current handling (of course, there may be issues with capacitance load), then build a simple "h-bridge" from 40A Bosch relays scavenged from a pick-ur-part (most of those places give 'em away), and put the mosfet pack on the low-side connected to ground. A couple more mosfets to control the relay switching, and you have a (somewhat) cheap (though large) 40A PWM-capable hybrid h-bridge (just don't switch the relays while PWM'ing!). I guess all of this is to say that there are plenty of inexpensive options out there that aren't "old-school" L293 or L298 solutions (though honestly, for their application, such h-bridge controllers still work well, provided you pair them properly - that is, larger motors running at 12 volts or a tad more off of gel-cell or similar batteries, when efficiency isn't as great a deal).
- saycheese 10y ago[Comment removed.]
- Orangeair 10y agoI think you commented on the wrong thread.
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago> On-board 4GB 8-bit eMMC flash storage Right here is the biggest benefit to these boards over say a raspberry pi. The IO rate on an SD card is so pitiful. It's extremely slow to do anything other than writing out logs. Having 4GB of flash will help speed these little devices up a lot!
- jwr 10y agoWhat's really great about this board is the practical approach: integrate things that people will need to build real-life robotics devices. A good example: 2S LiPo charger, not obvious to do yourself, and required if your project is supposed to move beyond your benchtop.
- clayrichardson 10y agoI hope they fixed the Easter Egg that blows the CPU if you power up via VDD_5V and plug the USB cable in.
- clayrichardson 10y agoSorry, order should be reversed: Power up via USB and connect VDD_5V.
- sriram_sun 10y agoI just ordered 2 of these from Arrow and received a free RPi 3 as well!