[Guest]

SENSOR
RC Radio Breakthrough!
The Sensor system is the first two way digital radio control system for the RC hobbyist. Nomadio has integrated today's highly developed cell phone technology into the world of RC and the results will astound you.... How about ...

Realtime reporting of speed, temperature and battery!

The Sensor system supercharges your RC experience by "putting you in the car while you drive it". Just like a NASCAR or Indy car, you get constant information from your car on how fast it's going, how the batteries are holding up, and how hot your engines and batteries are getting.

Sensor can warn you by vibrating like a cell phone when your engine is over temperature. It can say anything you want (even using your own voice!) to tell you when your batteries are getting low or when you reach a certain speed in the straightaway.

You can totally customize how and when it tells you all this information too - Sensor connects to your PC and you can design your own sounds and screens for it.

While we were developing this great new radio system, we solved a lot of problems with old crystal radio technology to make RC easier and more fun. Sensor uses fully digital radio systems and protocols, and it uniquely identifies your car. You'll never ruin anyone else's race by accident and more importantly, nobody else can drive your car or ruin your race.

Since Sensor system is digital, it is expandable. Sensor supports hundreds of virtual "channels" and it can expand up to 32 servos.

Of course, if Sensor didn't provide all the features you expect in a top-shelf RC controller, none of this great stuff would matter. The fact is that Sensor meets or exceeds the specs of the top controllers on the market in every way.

The Sensor system is truly a “ready to run” radio controller system, unlike typical RC radios that force you to buy separate receivers, crystals, batteries, and servos.

You get the controller, rechargeable batteries, a charger, speed, temperature and voltage sensors for your car and of course a reciever/transmitter for your car.

If you add up all the typical parts costs to equip a crystal RC car, you’l be surprised to find that Sensor system actually costs less than a top of the line RTR crystal system.

Even though the Sensor system makes all one-way crystal radios obsolete, it was designed to peacefully co-exist with crystal radios. It’s all done in software, no crystals ever again!

With Sensor in your hand, just turn it on and drive.. smarter!

This thing seems very promising..and it has certainly stirred things up in the r/c community. Please read the threads.

I would like to have one of these to show off at the Hobby show in November

[spond]

HEY..you stole my news piece...
..nice guy...

LOL

Ya, this thing looks really cool..there is lots of interest on a couple other forums, but the people from nomadio seemed to have disappeared off the forums...

It is really cool, and fully supports digital servos and everything you can thro at it..

And real time tlemetry..KEWL..

[Guest]

Since I've posted this weve been discussing it and the topic of 2.4 band itself came up. The concern is that the 2.4 band is already flooded with things such as phones, cameras, you name it.

Here is the response from Nomadio themselves...it refers to U.S FCC regs, answers that question.

I queried our technical lead and here's what he said:

We are not an "Amateur radio service", under part 97 of the FCC rules,
we are a "consumer ISM device" under part 18 of the FCC rules.

The Sensor uses a number of technologies to avoid interference with
other 2.4 GHz devices. The Sensor is smart enough to detect other
devices operating in the 2.4GHz range in same area, and move to other
parts of the band. It also sends signals multiple times on multiple
frequencies to make sure that they get through even if there is
interference. Finally unlike any other RC radio it uses special codes
in its messages so that other radio signals on the same frequency will
never be mistaken for a command to your car.

Which is to say that we have it covered

Here is some other questions that were asked and answered regarding this radio.

Since the vendor has responded to my message, I have a few questions of my own:

1. What about range? How does it compare to that of a normal FM radio?
2. When will we see versions for aeromodelling use?
3. Can a PC interface with the TX when it is on and send and receive signals? Could be very cool for amateur robotics.
4. Any chance of a webcam as a sensor or would that need too much bandwidth?

I'll answer your questions in order.

1 - if we used the big antenna that is on the prototype pictured in RCX photos, the range would be 1 mile. The real antenna is about 3 inches long and yields a usable range of 1/2 mile.

2- If we had a nickel for every flyer that came by the booth at RCX begging for Sensor/Aero, we'd be rich!. We chose to address surface vehicles first to establish our company in the market. For a variety of reasons Sensor's technology is really really interesting for flyers (for example it's expandable to support 16 servos at 12 bits (4096 steps) per servo - that's a lot of things to control! You could use one channel for 12 "on/off" things and still have 15 moving servos.) What we'll need to do is get Sensor/Surface shipping and happy and then we'll turn our attention to air vehicles. There are some issues to resolve with AMA and FCC since flying is much more potentially dangerous. That being said, the guys who fly $10K planes and have been hijacked by some kid in the pits turning on his radio are more than ready for new technology. The "Air Sensor" would definitely be a new case design with joysticks and probably a big screen like a PDA. And like crystal air radios, it would be more expensive. We were also a hit at the show with the robot wars guys because of the extra channels possible for death rays, neutron phasers, etc. <grin>.

3- I doubt that the code specifically supports that right now - we have designed the USB to capture the telemetry while you are driving. the good news is that it certainly could be done - it's only software. Unlike legacy RC radios, Sensor is software driven. We plan to provide a developer's kit and of course software updates, some free, and some with a charge if there is a lot of development involved.

4- We already do the cam thing for several of our military sentry platforms. At this point it takes too much horsepower to mpeg encode in the car so we use a separate analog video transmitter on the robot. This works acceptably well for the uses that the military wants but it's certainly not broadcast quality. There is glitching when you are moving around. Someday when digital video is cheap we'll be able to send it down the telemetry pipe but that's going to be a while.

5- the sensors look a lot like servo extensions - none of the sensors I've seen is larger than a dime and they are very light. As soon as we have approved product shots, I will post them here and on our web site.

[Guest]

stealing sponds thunder again. I got this from spond..

Nomadio has announced a delay in shipping for their 2.4 ghz systems.

"Nomadio announces delay in Sensor introduction New RC controller product now expected to ship in February Read on.

October 5, 2004 — Nomadio (www.nomadio.net) announced today that its first product introduction for the RC hobbyist market has been delayed by several months, and is expected to begin shipments in February 2005. The “Sensor System” was announced in April at the RCX hobby show in Anaheim California and has received great interest from hobbyists and press since that time because Sensor eliminates many of the problems that plague the RC hobby, such as accidental frequency conflicts, race-time crystal juggling, and damage from loss-ofcontrol. Alex Gizis, Nomadio’s CEO said, “This summer has been a frustrating yet satisfying period for Nomadio. Because of the military’s urgent need for our GC-204 UGV control system in Iraq, we allocated all of our development resources toward completing its development. With the GC-204 now on its way to field testing, we are able to complete the development of the Sensor product line. “ Gizis continued “One positive by-product of this delay is the fact that we’ve increased our system’s range and reliability beyond our previously announced specifications. While we are extremely disappointed with the delay in getting this product out to the market, we remain committed to providing our customers with a radio control system that truly solves the many problems of today’s crystal radios. Nomadio is in the RC business for the long haul and we will not ship Sensor until the product is ready. “ Nomadio’s Sensor system includes electronics that provide the driver with real time feedback of the car’s speed, the battery voltage, and the engine temperature. Unique to the RC market, the Sensor radio system is based in software and its capabilities expand greatly when it is connected to a personal computer through its USB port. Unlike legacy RC radios which operate in only 30 channels in the 72mhz band, the Sensor system uses the 2.4ghz frequency band, with redundant spread spectrum frequency hopping technology that provides hundreds of virtual channels. "