Was initially confused, because there was an earlier "BeagleBone Blue" (well, BlueSteel, I guess) that had nothing to do with robotics:<p><a href="http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/06/18/bluesteel-basic-beaglebone-black/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cnx-software.com/2014/06/18/bluesteel-basic-beagl...</a><p>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.<p>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 (<a href="https://trmm.net/LEDscape" rel="nofollow">https://trmm.net/LEDscape</a>) or even a DIY video controller (<a href="https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video" rel="nofollow">https://trmm.net/Mac-SE_video</a>).
Oh 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.<p>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.<p>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.
The 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.<p>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.<p>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.
Ah, 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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/robotis-dynamixel-robot-servos.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.trossenrobotics.com/c/robotis-dynamixel-robot-ser...</a>
[2] <a href="https://openservo.org/" rel="nofollow">https://openservo.org/</a>
Arrow 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...<p><a href="https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bbblue/beagleboardorg" rel="nofollow">https://www.arrow.com/en/products/bbblue/beagleboardorg</a>
How'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.
What'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.
Beagleboard is part of GSoC '17 - so if anyone has any cool open source project ideas using BB Blue, please do suggest at <a href="http://bbb.io/gsocideas" rel="nofollow">http://bbb.io/gsocideas</a>
The 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?
Here'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).
Now 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.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002KHN23S/ref=dp_olp_all_mbc?ie=UTF8&condition=all" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B002KHN23S/ref=dp_ol...</a>
> On-board 4GB 8-bit eMMC flash storage<p>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.<p>Having 4GB of flash will help speed these little devices up a lot!
Check this library if you want to interact with BB: <a href="https://github.com/theoctal/octalbonescript" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/theoctal/octalbonescript</a>
This 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?