SerialCtl 2 is ITR's fifth robot control software. The previous versions are (in chronological order): ITR-Gumstix-Controller, robots, robots v2, and the original serialctl
SerialCtl 2 is written in C++. ITR-Gumstix-Controller and serialctl are also written in C, while robots and robots_v2 are written in Java.
Unlike the previous serialctl, SerialCtl 2 is meant to be used as a separate library, and does not have a separate branch for each robot.
A SerialCtl 2 packet starts with the character '[' followed by a base-64 encoded payload and ends with a ']'. One payload consists of a 2-byte big endian CRC-16 checksum followed by a 1-byte packet type and finally the main payload, which can be up to 125 bytes in the Computer -> Arduino direction (limited to save memory on Arduinos) and up to (TODO: decide limit) in the Arduino -> Computer direction.
(TODO: Add details on each packet type)
0x00: Identify - (Empty) Sent by the computer to the robot to request an Identify Response packet
0x01: Identify Response - (Binary) Sent by the robot to the computer to configure the console layout
0x02: Joystick Data - (Binary) Sent by the computer to the robot to update joystick data
0x03: Robot Status - (Binary) Sent by the robot to the computer in response to joystick data
0x04: Log Message - (UTF-8) Sent by the robot to the computer to log data
0x05: Error Message - (UTF-8) Sent by the robot to the computer to log errors
0x06 - 0xEF - Reserved for Future Packet Types
0xF0 - 0xFF - (UTF-8) Custom Robot Commands (sendable via the console)