So this robot isn’t autonomous but it’s still pretty cool. I had some spare time to grab one of the platforms from my university and thought it would be pretty neat to have it be controlled via Android or a PC. I wrote a serial communications protocol and this was the perfect test. The bot is controlled locally by a DFRobot Romeo Arduino board. Communication is made over Bluetooth to an Android phone. The phone basically sets up a touch listener and maps the touch event’s X/Y coordinates to values within the servos range. There is a servo for each axle, allowing for a crab like steer. I used the factory motor driver since it acts similar to a servo, feeding it with different PWM values will cause it to move at the specified rate.If anyone wants the code just add a comment and I’ll throw it up! I also have a version that communicates over XBee from a PC to the bot, the controller program is written in processing.
I favor GMADE rock crawlers but they come in at 1:8 scale. Perhaps someone can write a strongly worded email to the company and coax them into making a crawler at 1:5 scale.
Unfortunately another student is using this platform right now so I haven’t had the chance to get a video, I can however email the code and/or my eclipse project plus the arduino code if anyone is interested or has an identical setup.
Sorry its taken me so long to update this project, I’ve recently been putting together a web site for all my projects(ALOT!). Its not complete yet but I have a few of my updated projects and source code available at the moment. I’ll be working on it and will be updating my LMR pages soon as well. Heres the link <http://www2.cs.uidaho.edu/~lamb3619/>.
