I telecommute between Austin and Dallas and have wanted a telepresence robot for a couple of years. I finally got the courage to build one (not being much of a hardware guy and never having built a robot) and I am happy to report that it was a success. I use it daily and it has held up well and become an indispensable work tool for me. I constructed it out of very high level parts (its more of an integration project than a true manufacture) and believe that just about anybody could make one in a short period of time. With that in mind I creating a detailed how-to blog here aimed at a casual, semi-technical audience.
(updated 8/31/2011) - finished 8-part build instructions, uploaded software, and video
Here is a short summary of the project details:
The robot wheel base is an iRobot Create. I constructed a body frame out of square aluminum tubing and T connectors and bolted it to the Create base. On top of that I mounted a product called a PowerPod which is basically a motarized platform for video and security cameras. It forms the "neck" of the robot and allows me to look side-to-side and up/down independently from the base. I created a custom bracket to attach an Asus netbook to the PowerPod so that the entire netbook can rotate making it appear that my head is turning so I can look directly at people's faces. The battery is removed from the netbook and I added the circuitry to voltage convert and power the netbook directly from the Create battery. The Create has an auto-docking battery charger that allows me to keep the robot powered. It lasts about an hour on a charge, so I can perform most tasks including driving the length of my office (luckily we're on a single floor), going in and out of coworker offices, and having short chats or even relatively long meetings.
I use Skype for my video and voice and I wrote custom software in C# to control the Create via serial port. The control messages piggy back over Skype from my control computer in Austin to my robot in Dallas. That is really convenient because I can rely on Skype to traverse the firewall instead of having to open and redirect ports on the corporate firewall. I have been using it for about two months and it works quite well. (It looks top heavy in the picture but it moves around quite well and has never fallen over) Here are some closeups of the robot and at some point I will upload some video of it in motion.
It’s interesting and the first i thought was…“will it move and if it’s capable of moving around how to balance it that it will not fall over”…
Sorry but I would need more details since I am not able to open the provided link (blocked here). To post projects here would require a bit more details instead of a link to another website…it’s just more convenient to have all, in one place .
strange because I have opened links on other robot projects from this site.
The robot is complete but my blog is not. Maybe when I have added all content I can pull a copy of it over it - it’s a lot of info which is why I thought it best to keep in one place.
Anyway here’s a short summary:
Yes it moves quite quickly using iRobot Create base. It’s about 4 feet tall but the structure above the base is less than 5lbs so the base keeps it balanced quite well. The software is coded to implement smooth accelerations to minimize any tilting. It has never fallen over after 2 months of operation. Also not obvious on this picture but the entire laptop can move independently from the base. It can pan about 50 degrees each way and tilt up/down about 40 degrees to allow free look. Control software piggybacks over Skype connection and WiFi to operate the robot remotely from anywhere.
Nice project. I think lumi’s issue with the link is because he is located in China, where web traffic is often filtered or blocked. Most people will be able to see your link.
Even so, it would be great if you can add some more content here on the site. You’ll get a lot of exposure here, and with content on LMR your post will be searchable within the site, which just makes everything more accessible.
However, I can understand that you don’t want to spend extra time duplicating your posts. The one resource no one can replace is time. ; j
Really nice project, think there are a few folks in Dallas working with Roombas and maybe Creates too. I’ve got a 530 and a Red I’d like to “modify” sometime, projects like this are a great inspiration!
Funny that that article focuses on the Anybot. Of all the industry robots coming out that one has always been the least appealing to me. That tiny fixed position screen just doesn’t seem very useful to me. From four or five feet away people would have trouble making out your subtle expressions - which is of course the huge benefit of video conferencing. If you were sitting at a large conference table then the video on this unit would be effectively useless. It seems like they put all their marbles on the gimmicky Segway wheel system which adds little to no value over three wheels and forgot the whole “point” of telepresence - natural face-to-face conversation. I guess they were first to market - but I have seen much, much better systems in development. Hell I would take mine (bugs and all) over the Anybot.
I have a question: you said “The control messages piggy back over Skype”, can you provide some details about this ? I know that Skype SDK is not available for public use, have you used window messages ?
Skype does provide a public API and an interface object called Skype4COM. The documentation is pretty horrible for it, but if you are diligent and can translate between multiple coding languages then you can find enough code samples out there to piece it together. It’s pretty powerful once you get into it. You can control most aspects of the Skype GUI, generate your own calls and video sessions, and most importantly for this project - you can transmit generic messages between applications via the Skype network. So for example I could generate this message: “MOVE 200” and transmit it like this…
I just can access it with proxy but only from home.