Upgrade tracked robotic arm w/ wireless camera and G1 phone

Lynxmotion
1

Hi…
I currently have a Lynx6 arm on a tracked chassis with the Basic Atom Bot board and am controlling it right now from a PS2 controller.

However, I now want to upgradthe controls and hardware on my Lynx6. I saw the SRV-1 blackfin mobile surveillance robot on ThinkGeek’s website and figured, why can’t I just upgrade my tracked Lynx6 robot to do all that. I prefer the lynxmotion robot with the arm anyways over a palm sized robot that just drives around and takes pictures. Here is the link below so you know what I am talking about.
thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8698/

This video shows roughly what I am looking to do with my Lynx6 robot.
youtube.com/watch?v=hxn8gNZhe7E

I want to be able to use a Google Android G1 cellphone (the kind you get from t-mobile) to control the robotic arm and tracked chassis and view what the robot sees with installed WIFI cameras on the screen of the G1 phone. It can be done with other robots (see the links), so how do I do this with my Lynx6 robot I described above?

So, here is my question. How do I add in a SRV-1 wireless WIFI robot controller with camera (surveyor.com/blackfin/) so I can control it over WiFi from my laptop or the G1 phone. Can I just wire it in somehow to the Basic Atom Controller? I found a website that will just sell the board components and camera without the track.
surveyor-corporation.stores.yahoo.net/srblcawi.html but there may be a less expensive option out there. I could use the playstation controller still for most of the movement but I kind of like the idea of the cell phone being able to do everything.

Since the SRV-1 board can be controlled using the new Google Android G1 phone, if wired properly to the Basic Atom Bot board (instead of replacing the board) it seems this would allow you to control the tracked chassis Lynx6 arm with your G1 phone along with the arm movements and camera with onscreen buttons or the trackball of the phone. Videos of the phone controlling the robot and the code for the Android phone are here.
surveyor.com/cgi-bin/robot_journal.cgi/2009/02/

All that said…if I were to get the SRV-1 Blackfin Camera with the combo radio/motor, it is possible to wire this into a Basic Atom Bot Board and control it with a G1 phone as described? What modifications might I need to make? The SRV-1 board can control some servos and all that if you look at the technical specifications but I think the Basic Atom Board can do more…and the SRV-1 primary purpose would be the WIFI capability and ability to translate the signal to the Bot Board if not replacing it entirely. Has anyone done this? Do you think it is possible to maybe switch between control via phone to control via the wireless playstation controller by throwing a switch? I know there are a lot of questions here but I’m just trying to get people thinking about this new technology so that it can also be applied to the lynxmotion robots.

Does lynxmotion currently have any kits or add-ons that will do the same thing? I just think this is really cool technology to be able to possible control a Lynxmotion robot on a tracked chassis from a Google Android G1 phone and be able to see on the phone screen what the camera mounted on the robot or the robotic arm sees. If Lynxmotion could offer some guidance on how to do this with the SRV-1 kit or create one themselves, I think there would be a lot of interest in this.

Thanks.

2

Hi oceansci,

We don’t currently have any information on this interesting solution. We are in the process of experimenting and learning more about zigbee technology though. I don’t have anything specific I can promise at this time. Cool stuff…

3

Thanks for that response Robot Dude.

Well…hopefully after this post has been up for a few days…some of those in the robotics community will have some input.

I checked out zigbee technology via Wikipedia (albeit not the most reliable source for scientific thoroughness but usually enough to get an idea about it.)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee

However, I would have to ask…what is the benefit of going toward zigbee over something like WIFI?

It seems WIFI would be the way to go after reviewing the technology. My reasoning is as follows: (note…I am still learning about all this so this is just my opinion right now based on what I’ve read so far…I hoping that people will either agree and provide those reasons or disagree but tell me why zigbee is better in the long run.)

  1. ) Just as far as availability…many electronics and computers have WIFI capability already built in. It seems like the off-the-shelf approach of readily available technology built in to nearly everything right now would serve our purpose better than zigbee technology which has some good advantages…but the major disadvantage seems to be limitations of current off-the-shelf products that can communicate with it. Take for instance the Google Android G1 phone…the Android open source software will allow you to take control of the phone and WIFI and use the phone to do everything from run a powerpoint presentation to control a robot’s movement and controls. I can go into a store now and get all sorts of WIFI items from laptops to network wireless routers to cell phones. I can’t say the same for zigbee…I think it would be more difficult to find.

2.) The fact that WIFI is so readily available and there are boards that are already built using WIFI like the SRV-1 mentioned above, means that the technology is already developed and available. No use inventing another wheel unless it’s a better wheel. It seems it would easier to look at the WIFI technology and see how we can modify it to use the current Lynxmotion products and Bot Boards than to try to develop zigbee to interact with the robotics…unless zigbee proves better with no additional specialized equipment.

3.) I kind of like the idea of being able to control the robot from a cell phone or even from my laptop or even better…if I have it networked in my house, I could potentially call up my robotic arm over the internet and run it from my office at work. Home and Office wireless networks are all WIFI right now. I am not even sure where to get or or how to make a zigbee wireless router if I wanted to control my robot over my home network.

Consider the possible scenario: Let’s say I got a call from my alarm company and I’m at work or on vacation. Well, I can fire up the robot (say it is on a charging station like those i-robot vacuum cleaners…in a sleeping but ‘always on’ state) and then remotely turn on the cameras…drive around my house and check out everything…sending the images and commands over the WIFI network of my house over the internet to wherever I am at to make sure my house is still secure (and to maybe scare any bad guys that might have broke in…better put Lojack or GPS tracking on the robot if I get it this far which is what I’m aiming for.).

This technology kind of reminds me of the military using predator drones from bases in the us to fly over foreign countries or NASA using the Mars Rover to collect samples only not quite as sophisticated. The potential for where this could go is awesome and I would hope that Lynxmotion could be a leader in this area as far as personal kit robots and cutting the cord from being tethered to totally wireless with cameras and imagery.

4.) Who wouldn’t want their own personal military type robotic arm with cameras that they can drive around from anywhere they have an internet connection and they built themselves? Think of the applications. You could have your own business checking crawl spaces for plumbing leaks or maybe work with rescue agencies developing off-the-shelf wireless rovers that they can build cheaply but still has a big impact on saving someone’s life searching small spaces (once the night vision cameras are installed.) Building your own robot by yourself is where the learning starts and then you can carry it out into the world. (So…thanks Lynxmotion for getting me started and making these kits available.)

I just think that WIFI is available now and one can already see it in action on self-made robots…I don’t know how far zigbee is along to doing anything even close to that video of the robot controlled from the cell phone.

Although we have limitations in range of WIFI signals and all that…it seems this is the logical next step given the availability, existing current development, and off-the-shelf capability of WIFI enabled cell phones, laptops, computers, and networks when compared to zigbee.

I’m open to any comments or criticisms. For I am grateful to be in a profession where the realization of being wrong is equivalent to an increase in knowledge.

When Einstein was asked what was most helpful to him in developing the theory of relativity, he replied,
“Figuring out how to think about the problem.â€

4

interesting. they appear to be using a cellphone with web browser to connect to the web server in a matchport wired to their camera board.

I wish I had more time to chase this type of stuff these days. :frowning:

5

For a fairly cheap price (Under 200 bucks) you can get a Rovio today and do most of what you want…

amazon.com/WowWee-Rovio-Enab … 865&sr=8-1

I don’t think we could come close to being able to build a bot with like features for 200 bucks.

6

Below is a previous discussion that might be of interest, along with a web based home automation forum that also might be of interest. The web control capability depends a lot on the web capability of the telephone. A friend at the bar a while back had an apple wifi gizmo (not an iphone) that was able to connect to my pan/tilt cam at the house. If the phone has standard web brouser capability, then web bot control should be fairly easy. Botton is one of the mini notebook computers that would make a good brain for a bot. The local Cricket cell phone provider has USB G3 cell adapters for notebooks for $40/month unlimited that could possibly extend control range beyond the typical wifi range. You probably need to research the web capability of cell phones for ones that have good web brouser capabilitys with out having to reprogram them. There are other posibilitys like the zipit, but one would need a lot of geek ability to make something workable.

lynxmotion.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2012

forums.homeseer.com/

officedepot.com/a/products/9 … 50-1635-8/

7

oceansci -

Maybe I can help answer some of your questions. Just one clarification - the ThinkGeek SRV-1 listing is out of date - we stopped building the Zigbee-based ARM7 SRV-1’s about 18 months ago. ThinkGeek will shortly start selling the Blackfin-based SRV-1 robots with Wifi, so that information should be updated.

With regard to SRV-1 control of Lynxmotion platforms, a number of Surveyor customers are already doing this. However, because the SRV-1 Blackfin only has 4 channels available to motor control, it might make sense to interface the Blackfin to the Atom to control a larger number of channels. I’m assuming the interface to Atom is via UART. Some small changes would be required to the SRV-1 firmware to support this, but it should be fairly easy to create a UART passthru, so that serial strings that are sent from the host are relayed to the Atom.

If you can get by with the available 4 channels, you will find the command protocol for the SRV-1 on our website - look for the SRV_protocol. The Android G1 console is just using commands from this list. For Atom interface, we would just add another command function.

Surveyor Development Team

8

Sounds very cool. 8) If you are interested you can create a thread here covering the firmware changes, etc.