Hi Zach,
There is some really interesting work going on in the land of sensors, and I can see why that would be a priority for you guys.
We’re interested in exploring the use of Bristlemouth for managing components on board a submersible using something like a Raspberry Pi. There are all sorts of connection possibilities there along with all of the associated needs of the device at the end of that connection.
For example, thrusters. I can control a thruster programmatically using a Pi, but I can’t use the Pi to provide power except for small motors. And so, I need to use an additional motor control board that can provide “3rd party” power. So, there could be a need to communicate through multiple components. The Pi might want to get an acknowledgement that the thruster is running, perhaps a readout as to the RPMs that it is providing. I might control direction of the thruster using a stepper motor, and need to communicate with that as well. I think that there might similar applications for, say, lighting control, cameras, specimen gathering devices, manipulators, buoyancy control, etc.
So, what I’d like to explore to see what facilities there might be for not only carrying signal, but for carrying payloads of data, some going to the devices, some coming back. And like with something like Ethernet, be able to identify the target for the instruction/data, etc.
It might be interesting to, instead of using a host of connections on the Pi, each going to a device, to have one connection on the Pi that connects to Bristlemouth, and have it manage the traffic to the devices. Use software on the Pi to construct packets of data or instructions to be sent to the various devices, and let Bristlemouth route it to the right device. I wouldn’t expect Bristlemouth to be able to interpret the instructions being sent, I don’t think.
Anyway, that’s the idea that I’d like to explore. A lot of this can be experimented with without even having to put something in the water, although I’d like to do that as well. I’m building our first very simple ROV now, but I’m also planning our next one, which will have the Pi on board. That might be a good time to be able to do some parallel work, where we build the functionality without using Bristlemouth, and also build it with Bristlemouth.
Thanks for your time. Ron