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Electrical & Wiring·Lesson 5 of 34

What Is the FRC Control System?

A high-level tour of the standard FRC electronics: the brain, the power distributor, the radio, and the muscles.

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The big picture

Every FRC robot runs the same core set of electronics, supplied in the Kit of Parts and governed by the FRC Game Manual, Section 8 (Robot Construction Rules). Understanding how the pieces fit together is the foundation for everything else in this branch.

Think of the system in five roles:

  • The power source - a single 12V, ~18Ah Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) battery that can briefly supply over 180A.
  • The power distributor - the power distribution device (PD), which splits battery power into protected branch circuits. Legal options are the REV Power Distribution Hub (PDH), the CTRE Power Distribution Panel (PDP / PDP 2.0), and, new for 2026, AndyMark Power Distribution.
  • The brain - the NI roboRIO (currently roboRIO 2.0), a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor plus a Xilinx FPGA that runs your code and the FRC safety system.
  • The communication link - the Vivid-Hosting VH-109 radio (Wi-Fi 6E), which connects the robot to the Driver Station and the field.
  • The muscles - motor controllers (Talon FX, SPARK MAX/Flex, Victor SPX, and others) that take low-power signals and switch high battery current to motors.

How signal and power flow

There are two separate networks on the robot:

  1. Power wiring carries high current. It runs from the battery, through the main 120A breaker, into the PD, then out through branch breakers to each motor controller and device.
  2. Control wiring carries low-current signals. The roboRIO commands motor controllers either over PWM (a simple pulse signal) or over the CAN bus (a digital network that daisy-chains many devices on two wires).

Rule R609 requires the high-current path - the battery, the Anderson SB connector pair, the 120A main breaker, and the PD - to be wired with 6 AWG copper wire or larger.

Why this matters

The most common reason a competitive robot fails on the field is not a software bug - it is an electrical fault: a loose connector, an undersized wire, a tripped breaker, or a brownout. The teams that win consistently treat wiring as a craft, not an afterthought.

Sources to bookmark

Key takeaways

  • The FRC control system splits into power wiring (high current) and control wiring (low-current signals).
  • Core components: 12V SLA battery, a power distribution device (PDH/PDP/AndyMark PD), roboRIO, VH-109 radio, and motor controllers.
  • The main power path must use 6 AWG or larger copper wire per Game Manual rule R609.
  • Most field failures are electrical, not software - wiring quality directly affects reliability.

Go deeper

Lesson quiz

Required

Answer all 3 questions correctly to complete this lesson.

1.In the FRC control system, which component runs the team's robot code and commands all the other hardware?

2.What nominal voltage does a fully charged FRC robot battery supply to the control system?

3.What is the role of the power distribution device (PDP or PDH) in the control system?

Answer every question to submit.