Needing help with a live video feed

Community General Discussions
1

I am a newbie here looking to cost-efficiently build a robot which will do several things.

drive, among other mechanical things ( robot arm, servos, climb stairs, etc. :wink: )
be controlled over wifi, including ad-hoc, remote access over internet
telepresence- stream sound to robot, audio and video to the controlling laptop
hoping for a range of 100-200 yards
singular battery w/ power supply
All this in a small (10x10x3 in or less) package plus the mechanical stuff

I have the mechanics fairly well handled, my questions are: How to stream audio/video from, and audio to the robot? When I started, it was recommended to use arduino for the control system, with wifi shield, motor controller. Is that the way to go on this, and if not, then what? Is there a way to stream this information through this system?

2

hehe, if i build it i’ll post. should be pretty cool, though i’m having difficulty with funding it :frowning: . I don’t need the robot to have a screen, just be able to talk through it. any ideas?

3

Thanks, i found a cam that would allow for 2-way audio :slight_smile: robotshop.com/pan-tilt-wifi-ip-camera-audio-2.html . Now just to figure out how to build this thing. It’s not easy to make a 10 inch tall robot climb stairs and still be fully maneuverable on flat ground XD. Hey, do you know how much range a wifi shield will give?

4

whoa, that’s not even close to what i had in mind. what can i do to get the range i’m looking for?

5

I’m not sure i understand. Surely you don’t mean plug such an antenna into the wifi shield?

6

Would it be better to give the robot it’s own router or something?

7

Would it be better to give the robot it’s own router rather than use the wifi shield? or even doable? would boosting the signal from the laptop with a signal booster help the range both ways at all?

8

thanks, though i’m not sure a directional antenna is possible, then i’d have to keep them pointed at each other somehow, which i have no idea how to do. I appreciate the help though, thanks a lot!

9

So to confirm the specs:

]Stair climbing/:m]
]Mobile platform/:m]
]Robotic arm/:m]
]Bi-directional telepresence w/ camera and audio/:m]
]Range of 100-200 yards/:m]

Wow. Curious to see the mechanics on this one. Use a WiFi camera with audio. Even a ~$80 WiFi camera includes pan and tilt. You should not try to run A/V through the microcontroller. You indicate you want people around the robot to see video as well? If this is the case, you should use a netbook (and not use the WiFi camera above). The netbook (chosen because it’s small, lightweight and has all the necessary features) can do 2-way A/V communication via WiFi.

10

If you only want to talk through it, there are wireless microphone options - you don’t need anything specifically for a robot. If you really want it to be integrated, consider the Wave Shield Kit for Arduino or the VoiceBox Shield. You’d be sending the audio files in packets, which it not as good as real time.

11

The range on the WiFi Signal will mainly depend on your WiFi coverage area from your router.

If you are planning in making an ad-hoc network with the WiFi Shield, the range should be ~15m from our experience.

12

WiFi is usually not well suited for long range operation, it is mainly intended for short-rage and high data throughput. You could try using a high gain antenna such as this one: RB-All-09

13

No, that is A USB dongle.

If you want to increase the range of a the WiFi shield, you can pick one that ca use an external antenna such as RB-Lin-31 or RB-Dfr-132

14

It would be much simpler to use a router indeed. You could boost the signals by using a directional antenna for the router and the laptop as well.