V5 Robot Brain Overview – VEX Library

Diagram of the V5 Robot Brain, showcasing its components and connections, illustrating the layout and functionality of the V5 system for robotics.

Function

The V5 Brain displays information about your robot and the V5 Robot Brain itself. It is also responsible for running the user program and controlling/reading the devices connected to the brain.

Features & advancements

V5 Brain

The V5 Brain uses a Cortex A9 processor in tandem with an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) to create a device that is 15x faster than its predecessor. The FPGA is used with all the smart port devices and to control the screen.
The brain also has expanded memory and additional storage. It can now store up to 8 user programs.
The V5 Robot Brain has multiple languages available to the user. Instead of English, users can select any of twelve other languages to be used within the interface.

Dashboard

Diagram of the V5 Robot Brain, illustrating key components and connections, including the brain's ports, sensors, and battery connections, relevant to VEX Robotics V5 category description.

Dashboards are one of the most notable V5 advancements. There is a built-in dashboard for every connected sensor and device, from switches and potentiometers to motors and the battery. Dashboards provide an incredible teaching and diagnostic capability, allowing you to see in real time what the sensor is actually doing, and what the data for that action looks like.

Diagram of the V5 Robot Brain, illustrating its components and connections, including ports, power supply, and communication interfaces, relevant to V5 Category Description.

User programs draw fast and efficiently on dual buffered internal memory, and the FPGA handles screen refresh at an incredible 60 Hz. Programmers can utilize the touch screen to draw lines, rectangles, and circles, along with line color, width, and fill control. Multi-sized, multilingual fonts in any color are built in.

How it improves the user experience

The V5 Robot Brain has 128 Mbytes of RAM while the Cortex has .0625 MBytes.
Simple touchscreen user interfaces are familiar to almost everyone, making V5 more approachable.
Students and teachers can now run programs, troubleshoot their robot and get important feedback in real-time.
Programs can be downloaded wirelessly.
Dashboards provide real-time diagnostics.
Smart Ports automatically detect the type of connected device and handle motors and sensors interchangeably.
Existing EDR users can continue to use some legacy motors and sensors with the V5 Robot Brain.