Cross Platform Qt Topside Application

[chriskon149]

Hey homebuiltROVs community,

I've been working on writing an open source topside application in Qt for the past few months, and I think it is finally ready to be released. It uses a USB joystick to drive the motors on an ROV, and it talks to the ROV over ethernet (using UDP). It has a bunch of fancy featurs (a PID algorithm for holding depth, vector drive support, tank drive support, etc), which you can find out about here: http://code.google.com/p/rov-suite/wiki/Monterey

It uses a UDP to communicate to the ROV, which means that it would be extremely easy to write your own bottomside application that interfaces with Montery. However, if that is not your cup of tea, there is an already working bottomside application (CoreBuild), but it does not support all of the features of Monterey. Instead, I recommend that you use CoreBuild with LegacyController. But like I said, interfacing with Monterey via the UDP packet is extremely easy and I'd be more than happy to answer any questions regarding it.

The compiled application in Windows specific right now, but the source is available here: http://code.google.com/p/rov-suite/source/checkout and is able to be compiled on Linux and OSX.

The joystick is read using QJoystick (found here: http://code.google.com/p/joypick/), which uses SDL, which means that it is cross-platform as well.

If you have any questions regarding the application at all, please don't hesitate to ask me. If you'd like to port it to another platform or would to like help out with it, please let me know!

Finally, if you have any input or any suggestions (new features, a better way of handling or displaying things, etc), I'd love to hear them!

Have fun and happy ROVing!

Chris K

[derelicte]

Very cool!

I haven't looked at the code yet, but if you could port it to an arduino it could make for a nice rov control system.

[chriskon149]

CoreBuild is an Arduino sketch that works with the Legacy Controller topside application. I need to update it for Monterey, but I should be mostly compatible (to the point of working but not with every feature).

Thanks!

Chris

[derelicte]

excellent. I saw that file in the repo, but I didn't dig to see what it was.

which arduino(s) have you run it on?

[chriskon149]

which arduino(s) have you run it on?

The older version of CoreBuild (the bottomside applications, older meaning versions <4.0.0) are made to run on the Arduino Mega 2560. The latest version, version 4.0.0, is meant to run on the Duemilanove, Uno, and the Arduino Ethernet. It runs pretty smooth at a processing rate of about 15 packets per second.

If you are interested in using Monterey, please feel free to write your own bottomside application or modify the one provided (and of course you're welcome to use the provided application without any modifications)! I'd love to help answer questions regarding Monterey, CoreBuild or anything else.

Thanks for the interest!

Chris