This robot was controlled by an Arduino microcontroller connected to my Tablet PC by USB. The Tablet PC in this setup was serving as a byte relay enabling wifi adhoc control of the robot as well as streaming the video from the webcam to the controlling PC. The ultimate goal of this project was to eliminate the tablet by replacing it with a Linksys WRT54GL router which would communicate with the microcontroller over the serial protocol based on TCP/IP commands. Eventually, this robot might be equipped with sensors which will allow it to be programmed to run autonomously.
The first revision of the robot is featured in the video below:
The laptop was also placed on a wooden mount for more stability.
Unfortunately, the latest revision of the robot was not filmed.
This project is currently on hold indefinitely, but may be picked up in the future.
This was the interface for controlling the robot on the remote PC which I programmed. It would convert a joystick location to two motor PWM output, not a simple task.
Interesting Fact: On it's first outdoor run (which was sadly not filmed), this robot had a mild crash with one of my friend's car leaving a battle scar on my tablet PC that is still there today.
