VMX Robotics Toolkit (VMX RTK) is a collection of key software libraries, applications and services, pre-installed onto a Raspberry Pi Buster (Raspbian) OS image.
VMX RTK was specially designed to streamline the process of building an intelligent ROS robot or a FIRST FRC motion/vision coprocessor.
VMX RTK can be purchased pre-installed onto a 32GB micro-SD card, or can be built using open-source scripts. This SD Card Image includes the Raspbian Stretch Linux Operating System, and is compatible with the Raspberry Pi Model 4B, 3 (both B and B+ editions) and the Raspberry Pi Zero/W. Since the process of building the image can take over 6 hours to build and verify and requires constant internet connection during much of that time, we encourage you to purchase the pre-formatted SD card to save yourself time and trouble.
VMX RTK is comprised of the following components:
| Component | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Raspbian Stretch | Raspberry Pi Debian-based Linux operating system and desktop | Latest Raspberry Pi OS; includes Java, C++ and Python development tools and environments |
| Mono | C# Development Tools and Environment | Enables .NET programmers to build Robots |
| ROS Kinetic | Robot Operating System | Includes core and desktop packages |
| xGalaga | Classic Console Game | Even Robotics Engineers need to have fun sometime! |
| Eclipse | Integrated Development Environment for C++ & Java | Enables writing/debugging code directly on the Raspberry Pi |
| VMX-pi ROS Node | Network Access via ROS to all VMX-pi functionality | Requires VMX-pi circuit board |
| VMX-pi HAL | Access via C++, Java, Python and C# to all VMX-pi functionality from the host processor | Requires VMX-pi circuit board |
| OpenCV | Vision Processing Libraries | Includes C++, Java and Python bindings |
| WPI Network Tables | Network communication with RoboRIO for FRC | Includes support for C++, Java and Python |
| WPI CSCore | Access multiple cameras, configure camera settings, acquire images and stream video HTTP stream(s). | Includes support for C++, Java and Python |
| Mjpeg-streamer | Streams video images over Network | Usable on a FRC competition robot, subject to FRC port restrictions |
| NTP | Network TIme Protocol Server | Using VMX-pi Real-time Clock (RTC), can distribute time of day to synchronize multiple processors |