.NET robotics controller
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Andrew Wiles wrote:
I know how to program for Windows Mobile 7
Exactly
Andrew Wiles wrote:
I am now doing the research on how to drive the hardware (servos, motors etc.) from the phone.
That's probably gonna be fun, but the hardest part I think will be to connect the very small pins on the phone.
Andrew Wiles wrote:
I may still need to use something like a netduino board for this but it should be a lot simpler than the monster I was looking at yesterday......
It shouldn't be difficult if you have a little knowledge on microcontroles and some logic port notions.
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
I think you'll like netduino. My son (age 13) and I have been having a lot fun with it for the last couple of months.
J W
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I have a robotics project that I would like to have a go at with my son but I have no idea how to get started on sourcing hardware so I thought I would ask . Basically I would like to build a remote control vehicle BUT rather than use standard radio control I would like to use a mobile phone as the controller via the internet. The logic behind this is that it would be possible to control the robot from any location and not be limited by the range of an individual radio device - a bit like the Rovio robot. To do this I am going to need some kind of controller that can connect to the internet, preferably using mobile technology rather than wireless networking, and which can handle control of servos plus video streaming. Not being a hardware guy I am having trouble working out what to search for (assuming that such technology exists). My skill set is .NET so something that can be made to work via web services would be ideal. Obviously the further we get away from .NET the longer the learning curve is likely to be (my son is 14 so we need to be able to get results at a reasonable rate to keep his interest). So - does anyone out there in codeproject land have any thoughts on where to source hardware for this kind of project?
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"Get a high amp small (like motorcycle) battery and Voltage inverter to have 12v and 100 (for a laptop that will run Vista or 7 (you need that to have a browser that will utilize web sockets for a seriously sick robot) the OS and allow you to use a USB camera to stream the video and sound from the remote robot w/windows media, live messenger etc..or get a web enabled (remote viewing capable) security camera. Get yourself a USB dongle type device (I use a clear hotspot)for Internet connectivity. Using any USB enabled micro controller (i have had great success with the Parallax Stamp ***1 about $150 each) you can set up a dot.NET websocket HTML5, http, etc connection to another comp that has IIS with ASP.net app to take command posts from a web page using ANY device. Allow access to your webserver comp at home, connect to the site with any device that has a browser. Have the page write the command file (which the robot laptop requests from the webserver as an XML file. Basically the web app has a page that accepts the postback like this EX: default.aspx?Direction=[L,R,F,B)&Distance={increment of distance your command app accepts as a valid value]&CameraMove=[L,R,U,D]&turn=[R,L]&turndegrees=[0-360} and so on and then returns a clean page to the remote system to enter the next command. The robot Laptop app can recieve the commands from websocket using a wifi, or gsm hotspot connection to a local or remote hosted IIS server if you choose. If you trail two necklace sized chains (insulated) you can park the robot on two seperated sheets of copper hooked to a battery charger and it will stay on as long as the wall outlet is hot and recharge while parked as long as it does not pull more than about 2 amps (hence the motorcycle battery). I do not think you really want to reverse engineer a cell phone to drive it. A. Not enough power. B. Impossible to solder the micro circuits. A cell phone that has the umbilical and O/S do this is now more expensive than the minimum laptop required and I do not know of any kits you can get to drive external items other than card readers. You can however use a cellphone to make the posts described in the next paragraph or use it for the Internet Hotspot connectivity bi-directional. It really depends on If you want to write and app for the microcontroller, the receiving phone, the sending phone -or- write an app on the laptop that controls the microdevice via usb and receives it's commands from a redily available webservice using any device that can post. If you can write
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I have a robotics project that I would like to have a go at with my son but I have no idea how to get started on sourcing hardware so I thought I would ask . Basically I would like to build a remote control vehicle BUT rather than use standard radio control I would like to use a mobile phone as the controller via the internet. The logic behind this is that it would be possible to control the robot from any location and not be limited by the range of an individual radio device - a bit like the Rovio robot. To do this I am going to need some kind of controller that can connect to the internet, preferably using mobile technology rather than wireless networking, and which can handle control of servos plus video streaming. Not being a hardware guy I am having trouble working out what to search for (assuming that such technology exists). My skill set is .NET so something that can be made to work via web services would be ideal. Obviously the further we get away from .NET the longer the learning curve is likely to be (my son is 14 so we need to be able to get results at a reasonable rate to keep his interest). So - does anyone out there in codeproject land have any thoughts on where to source hardware for this kind of project?
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"I think .Net Micro Framework is probably what you are looking for. The Gadgeteer is a good kit to get you started. Good luck.
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I have a robotics project that I would like to have a go at with my son but I have no idea how to get started on sourcing hardware so I thought I would ask . Basically I would like to build a remote control vehicle BUT rather than use standard radio control I would like to use a mobile phone as the controller via the internet. The logic behind this is that it would be possible to control the robot from any location and not be limited by the range of an individual radio device - a bit like the Rovio robot. To do this I am going to need some kind of controller that can connect to the internet, preferably using mobile technology rather than wireless networking, and which can handle control of servos plus video streaming. Not being a hardware guy I am having trouble working out what to search for (assuming that such technology exists). My skill set is .NET so something that can be made to work via web services would be ideal. Obviously the further we get away from .NET the longer the learning curve is likely to be (my son is 14 so we need to be able to get results at a reasonable rate to keep his interest). So - does anyone out there in codeproject land have any thoughts on where to source hardware for this kind of project?
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?" -
How about this: http://www.ghielectronics.com/[^]. It uses the Micro .NET Framework. Have seen some demonstrations of it. Runs from within Visual Studio and includes full debugging support.
This does look very interesting. I wonder if the USB client/host units might allow the connection to a phone? Thanks
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?" -
Get a high amp small (like motorcycle) battery and Voltage inverter to have 12v and 100 (for a laptop that will run Vista or 7 (you need that to have a browser that will utilize web sockets for a seriously sick robot) the OS and allow you to use a USB camera to stream the video and sound from the remote robot w/windows media, live messenger etc..or get a web enabled (remote viewing capable) security camera. Get yourself a USB dongle type device (I use a clear hotspot)for Internet connectivity. Using any USB enabled micro controller (i have had great success with the Parallax Stamp ***1 about $150 each) you can set up a dot.NET websocket HTML5, http, etc connection to another comp that has IIS with ASP.net app to take command posts from a web page using ANY device. Allow access to your webserver comp at home, connect to the site with any device that has a browser. Have the page write the command file (which the robot laptop requests from the webserver as an XML file. Basically the web app has a page that accepts the postback like this EX: default.aspx?Direction=[L,R,F,B)&Distance={increment of distance your command app accepts as a valid value]&CameraMove=[L,R,U,D]&turn=[R,L]&turndegrees=[0-360} and so on and then returns a clean page to the remote system to enter the next command. The robot Laptop app can recieve the commands from websocket using a wifi, or gsm hotspot connection to a local or remote hosted IIS server if you choose. If you trail two necklace sized chains (insulated) you can park the robot on two seperated sheets of copper hooked to a battery charger and it will stay on as long as the wall outlet is hot and recharge while parked as long as it does not pull more than about 2 amps (hence the motorcycle battery). I do not think you really want to reverse engineer a cell phone to drive it. A. Not enough power. B. Impossible to solder the micro circuits. A cell phone that has the umbilical and O/S do this is now more expensive than the minimum laptop required and I do not know of any kits you can get to drive external items other than card readers. You can however use a cellphone to make the posts described in the next paragraph or use it for the Internet Hotspot connectivity bi-directional. It really depends on If you want to write and app for the microcontroller, the receiving phone, the sending phone -or- write an app on the laptop that controls the microdevice via usb and receives it's commands from a redily available webservice using any device that can post. If you can write
Do you think my wife will mind if I raid her jewelry box for the "2 necklace size chains"? Gold is a good conductor and does not oxidise...... I am hoping I can build some semi-autonomous behavior to prevent collisions, i.e. have some sensors to detect objects and override the last command when a collision is imminent. Loads of good ideas here - thanks.
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?" -
This does look very interesting. I wonder if the USB client/host units might allow the connection to a phone? Thanks
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"Hmm, not sure about that. I think the phone will support some protocol which you can implement in the .NET framework, but no experience with that. Also check http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/netmf/default.aspx[^]. I have used an old model of the GHI board for demonstration purposes. I was impressed by the ease of setup. Created a simulation environment for it to test the software without the hardware and when the hardware came, just loaded the software and yipee...
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I like the look of Netduino - thanks It looks like they have a pretty active community so maybe I will ask some questions there and see if they think I am mad....
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"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"Hi, The Netduino is a great little tinker board however is limited in it's IO ability. As a clear frontrunner I would suggest the Fez Panda 2 the same website for GHI electronics has alternatives. I would strongly recommend staying away from Microsoft's ".NET Gadgeteer" it is simply the same FEZ based board however at 2 -3 times the cost. tinyclr FEZ (Frekin Eazy) boards have been around a little longer than Netduino and has a much stronger community. The advantage of both board are they are Arduino compatible which means the shields that plug into the the top will work. Great as you can get cheap ones of ebay however be careful as you must re-map pins for the much cheaper ones. The reason I suggest the Panda II as well is that you can use these shield however with the extra header you can reduce the space your require. To help sceptics here is a few comparesents
FEZ PANDA II | NETDUINO
72MHz. 32-bit ARM7 processor | 48MHz, 32-bit ARM7 processor
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148KB for user application | 128 KB for user application
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62KB RAM | 60KB RAM
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54x Digital I/O ports | 20x Digital I/O portsand thats just for starters as the size of your project is quite substantial and complex the PANDA II will give you the extra where ever you need it and only for an extra $5 or £5. Hope this helps you on your way, Cheers Chris
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I think you'll like netduino. My son (age 13) and I have been having a lot fun with it for the last couple of months.
J W
Sweet! Thanks for the suggestion. I bet I'll have some fun with it :)
"To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems" - Homer Simpson
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I have a robotics project that I would like to have a go at with my son but I have no idea how to get started on sourcing hardware so I thought I would ask . Basically I would like to build a remote control vehicle BUT rather than use standard radio control I would like to use a mobile phone as the controller via the internet. The logic behind this is that it would be possible to control the robot from any location and not be limited by the range of an individual radio device - a bit like the Rovio robot. To do this I am going to need some kind of controller that can connect to the internet, preferably using mobile technology rather than wireless networking, and which can handle control of servos plus video streaming. Not being a hardware guy I am having trouble working out what to search for (assuming that such technology exists). My skill set is .NET so something that can be made to work via web services would be ideal. Obviously the further we get away from .NET the longer the learning curve is likely to be (my son is 14 so we need to be able to get results at a reasonable rate to keep his interest). So - does anyone out there in codeproject land have any thoughts on where to source hardware for this kind of project?
www.it-workplace.com
"If a man speaks in a forest where there is no woman to hear him, is he still wrong?"When using a cell phone or tablet to control a robot you need to think first about an interface to hardware. How is the device going to talk to the outside world? Most robotics hardware is going to revolve around a micro controller of some sort. This could be a Parallax.com Basic Stamp II or Propeller board or some form of Arduino. These devices communicate via a USB or Serial interface. So that is what you need to think about how to make a phone speak serial to a micro controller. If the mobile device is an Android OS there is a free app you can get from the app store, type Basic Stamp and you should find a serial communication program that will allow the earbud speakout to be used to send serial data to an external device. The external device then needs to be programmed to act on the serial data from your Android bases device. .Net can certainly be used to control a robot, Visual Studio gives you everything you need to send serial data to a micro controller. You can even added vision system, text to speech and speech recongition with .Net running on a laptop, desktop or netbook. I use Visual Studio for this with my robots.