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Programing a tele presence robot — Parallax Forums

Programing a tele presence robot

lightbringerlightbringer Posts: 10
edited 2014-09-04 08:19 in General Discussion
I am trying and losing at building a tele presence robot using the arlo parts. The head of the bot has software already and can revolve in any direction. The base is 24 x 24 very weightless and awaiting power. My proplem now is software. I'm not a programer so I'm asking who here has or made a programe that would work for a tele presence robot base. I'm in over my head here and I really need help.
:frown:

Comments

  • ValeTValeT Posts: 308
    edited 2014-08-26 04:27
    Hi lightbringer. First of all, welcome to the forums!

    I am working on the exact same project, but I started on the software side. To complete my project, I am going to use the Skype API, which Mr. Gracey suggested, to communicate to the ActivityBoard on my Arlo. I am currently trying to get my Java program to communicate with the ActivityBoard; unsuccessfully I might add :(

    Below is the link to a thread where I have attached my current code and am asking for a little help. I am planning on spending a couple of hours on this today, but have school during the day.

    http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/156974-RN-42-Bluetooth-mldule-and-Java

    Please keep me updated as you progress through the project!
  • ChrisL8ChrisL8 Posts: 129
    edited 2014-09-03 10:12
    What sort of hardware are you using for the telepresence? Is it a laptop or something else, what operating system does it run?
  • ValeTValeT Posts: 308
    edited 2014-09-03 10:24
    If you are using a tablet ( please use an Android one if possible ), the software portion will look very different than the software for communicating with a laptop.

    I am planning on using a Laptop for V1.
  • lightbringerlightbringer Posts: 10
    edited 2014-09-03 20:35
    i'm on a mac here. the head of my bot is a ready made kubi by resolve robotics. it has it's own software and goes up is minutes. what i need is to control the 24 x 24 inch base i made with the arlo platform. i want someone with a labtop from anywhere in the world to be able to move my bot back forward left right. my point now is this. who here has done this?
  • RobotWorkshopRobotWorkshop Posts: 2,307
    edited 2014-09-04 08:04
    You mentioned that you have made a base using Arlo parts. It would help to know just which parts you used and perhaps a picture of your base. Besides the mechanical components what else are you using? While the motors were use for the MadeUSA, Eddie, and Arlo the control electronics are different. What electronics are you using? DO you haev HB-25's for each motor and one of the Propeller boards as the base controller? Typically the Arlo base will use a Propeller board with a pair of H-Bridge drivers to control the movement of the base. With that either a laptop or other controller can offload the base movement tasks to the controller for the base of the robot.

    Are you trying to use a tablet or other device with Kubi and then have that directly control the motors on the base? I think a few more details on what you want to accomplish and what pieces you already have will help.

    Robert
  • ValeTValeT Posts: 308
    edited 2014-09-04 08:10
    In terms of software, how do you want the "long distance" controller to be able to access the robot? I am going to use Skype, but you could use a web server. As RobotWorkshop said, more details would be helpful.

    Thanks to ChrisL8, I have a new round of software experiments to conduct, and hopefully I will be able to move on to the next step of the project soon. At that point, I will start messing around with Skype and will have more details that you might be able to use.
  • ChrisL8ChrisL8 Posts: 129
    edited 2014-09-04 08:19
    That Kubi looks really cool, and it seems to take care of so many things all in one package.

    For controlling the robot what I would do is get a Raspberry Pi and a USB WiFi dongle for it (The Edimax works well).
    You can power the Raspberry Pi from the ArloBot Power Distribution Panel's 5 volt output.
    The Pi is inexpensive and will have a very low power draw using the existing batteries from the ArloBot.

    Get the Raspberry Pi up and running with Linux, plug your ArloBot's activity board into the Pi's free USB port, and install SimpleIDE on it.
    Here is the "log" I made when I did this, which might help:
    http://ekpyroticfrood.net/?p=54

    This should make development very easy, as you can keep the Activity Board and Pi all connected and on board the ArloBot and update code on it no matter where it is.

    Once I had the Raspberry Pi up and powered on the ArloBot with VNC and SSH access over VNC it is just a matter of writing code for the Propeller Board to take commands from the Raspberry Pi for driving around.

    I would start with a simple program on the Propeller to take single letter commands over the serial port that are translated into commands using arlodrive.h.
    Imagine using 'w', 'a', 's' and 'd' to control the robot, just like a video game.

    Then you can drive the ArloBot remotely over VNC via WiFi just using the SimpleIDE terminal!
    I would consider this the "working prototype" and then you can use this code to make it fancier.

    The next step would be to write a better interface on the Pi. I would start with a command line interface using something that can talk to the Activity Board over the USB serial connection.
    Then I would build a web page that takes input over HTML and translates it into commands run on the command line interface.

    P.S. My instructions here just assume that you built an "Arlo" using all of the parts here http://www.parallax.com/product/arlo-robotic-platform-system including an Activity Board for the micro controller. That isn't required, but I had to make some assumptions. :)
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