store data into external storage with sbRIO 9602

[Nick.song]

Hi all,

Does anyone have the experience storing data from sbRIO into an external USB or any other types of storage?

Since there is not USB port on 9602, I am planing to use the on-board serial ports to do this.

But how?

Thank you.

Zhuoyuan

[Paul-B]

Hello Nick.song,

Can you please provide more information about your application, you could use serial to store data however this might not be the most efficient method. NI does have a SD Card Module which you could use to store information to an external device, however you could also stream information to a host system. Using network streams or TCP/IP you can transfer data from your sbRIO to a host system, you could also FTP the information with your system on a network. Depending on scope of your application and your end goal different data storing methods may be a better fit.

Secure Digital Removable Storage Module for CompactRIO

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/204328

Paul-B

[Spex]

The 2nd generation Single-Board RIO devices also include a USB port intended for data logging to flash drives. Some of them also include an SD card slot.

If the new RIO devices are not an option, I've always wanted to try to use the FPGA to attempt to write to the SD card format. The Secure Digital standard includes an alternative SPI interface. A quick search on ni.com will find an IP core for SPI comm for LabVIEW FPGA. I don't know how hard it would be to build a driver layer that implemented a file system. I think the SPI interface is very low level (write, read, erase block).

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

[Nick.song]

Hi Paul,

I am working on an autonomous vehicle. I already have all the controling and data collection program ready on the desktop and the tests worked out well. 

Now I am trying to put all the programs into the vehicle so that I don't need any enthernet connection when the vehilce is running. But I am still not sure how to do it in details.

I'll apprieciate it if you can also help me out on this. 

And for the external storage, I want to store the IMU data when running. Once I can download all the program into the sbRIO, I cannot store the date into the desktop using TCP/IP any more. So I want to find a way to store them. Because storing them to the place I store the program will case storage issues.

Thanks for you help

Zhuoyuan

[Nick.song]

More info. I checked the SD module. I don't think I will go for that because of the price. I am using sbRIO 9602, the first generation. I also got the 2nd generation shipped resently, which came with USB port and it's really sweet. But for this one I am working on, I still need to figure out a way to solve the storage problem. 

Thanks

[Nick.song]

Hi Spex,

Thanks for you information.

Frankly, the new sbRIO has been shipped already, which is awesome to have USB. But I still need to figuire out how to sovle the storage problem with the 9602. I have SPI driver for the IMU written. So it may not be a problem. Just not very sure how to do that and what kind of device I need to use to connect. (The SD module is not an option because of the price and I am not using cRIO)

Thanks 

Zhuoyuan

[Spex · Accepted solution]

Hi Zhouyuan,

This wikipedia article on SD Card technical details is where I got the idea to use the FPGA to talk directly to an SD Card via SPI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Technical_details

Unfortunately, I don't know all the technical details that would be involved to making this work, but it looks possible.

As I mentioned, the SPI interface to SD Cards is very low level, and developing a functional driver may be challenging.

In the spirit of brainstorming low cost ideas... You could build a small ethernet enabled logging system on Arduino.  I searched a bit on Google and found the following shield which includes SD Card and Ethernet.  Coupled with the Arduino microcontroller, the device could receive the IMU info from sbRIO via ethernet on the robot, and log the data to the SD Card.

Both of the above efforts would take work, but are lower cost than adding a dedicated SD Card module which includes the necessary firmware in its design.

Cheers,

[Nick.song]

Hi Spex,

Thank you. I'll try to look at is first. I hope it works because it seems to be convienient. 

Best.

Zhuoyuan