I’ve finally replaced two servos on my old DIY pan/tilt cam that finally died after ~5-6 years in service. Below is the link and it appears to be working (the computer that handles the dynamic IP has been oos for almost a year). Anyhow, if the P/T-Cam is selected, then various methods can be used to move the servos (pan, tilt, and presets), which moves the cam. This setup is ~6 years old, so it is somewhat dated. The same type setup can be made using the ssc-32.
My question is who’s going to be the first in the forum to put their bot/arm on line and let people around the world operate it. The first I ever saw (~1996) was a small sumo type bot at a university in a ~3’x3’ box frame made from either yard sticks or 2x4’s. You could control foward/reverse/left/right and push around objects in the frame like empty drink cans and such.
I agree. I’d like to see this. Although Im not suited for this type of project (can’t program squat yet), I’d be interested in doing something like this for my military robots I enter into the science fair. Would be far better to control them via internet in real time rather than via radio.
I’ve thought about this off and on for quite some time, but have usually been put off by bandwidth issues and/or the issue of porting commands from the user to the bot. With what’s available easily and cheaply these days, it would be significantly easier to do than it was just a year or two ago. You no longer need a dedicated server or anything particularly fancy - there are a number of methods for serving up live video feeds for free using just a cheap USB webcam. You’d need some method for receiving and parsing the commands, but I imagine that it shouldn’t be too difficult with a bit of work.
My first experience with web-based teleoperated robotics was a previous incarnation of the UWA Telerobot. I spent many hours stacking blocks from my desk at work.
My first “real” robotics project was a polar-coordinate arm which ran into problems stemming from my lack of design experience at the time, but I ended up with a couple of good, robust assemblies which I hope to eventually rebuild into a new arm one of these days, and get it hooked up to the web for Internet control. Yet another item that keeps getting pushed down the project list…
the problem I see is does the robot have to have an onboard computer, teathered or wireless to a computer nearby? I see this as the only problem getting a bot like mine on the internet. You would still need have some good wireless connectivity atleast.
Doesn’t sound like anything that a simple WiFi router couldn’t handle. Even if the bot was reporting back to a stationary machine that was handling the web traffic, parsing the commands, and generating the feedback, it should still leave plenty of bandwidth for normal Internet traffic.
You might find, as they did in Australia, that you need to find a way to somehow limit traffic to one user at a time.
For my type of simple web control, a computer of some type would be required to be in the loop. There might be options to use lan connected stand alone web server modules like site player. The secret to limiting bandwidth useage of a webcam is to have nothing that is really interesting to look at, or not publically posting the link to the cam. Non geek types get board very quickly and leave. I can see the geeks using the cam as they tend to be interested in the details of operating the cam and not using the cam to look at anything in particular. At one time I had seven web cams running, and watching how people viewed them was interesting. People in foreign countries love to watch the US tv feed. The NIC in my main serving computer seems to have died, which killed most of the cam feeds. As to software, output only programs to a ssc-32 can be made in notepad. For bidirectional data transfer, I made the test program below some time back for use with apache. One would make a web page with two frames, one for control only, and one for requesting and receiving return data from the ssc-32. Bottom is another type of web page control setup using dropdowns. One could use these to make a servo control page similiar to a row of sliders just using notepad. One can make a page using java sliders if desired. Almost all my servo testing is now done thru a web page because it is so easy to position the servos (single click).
Well, It has to be fed some time! It has been in use so long to provide a source of movement that the head is somewhat mineral encrusted from all the water that has evaporated.
I’ve done some checking with my new ssc-32, and below is a simple way to control the ssc-32 via http on the local computer or over the internet if desired. This control is one way. Do the following for this setup:
Note: Turn off word wraping in notepad to have clean unwrapped lines.
Install the apache web server and set it to run as a service (I’m using version 1.3.31).
Make the below files and place in the specified places.
Clich on the links ("*") to have the brouser send the movement request to the apache web server. Apache then runs the batch file to send the command to the ssc-32.
Copy the below code, paste in notepad, and name makeechoo.bat. Double click the makeechoo.bat file to run it and echoo.com will be created. Put the echoo.com file in the apache cgi-bin folder.
Copy the below code and paste in notepad. Save as echoo.bat, and place it in the apache cgi-bin folder. Note that this is set for 9600 baud and com 5. The “mode” line can be omitted and it will ise the default com port settings.
Copy the below code and paste in notepad. Save as ssc32.htm on the desktop. This is the web based control panel. change the 127.0.0.1 IP address to something like me.no-ip.com when using on the internet.
Some more stuff with server side batch files. Make the below batch files and place in the cgi-bin folder. The servo32.bat file contains some servo commands. The start.bat and start1.bat files both start the servo32.bat file in different ways. The servo32.bat could contain various short time routines, such as pulling a gun trigger for a second. Above the start batch files are the urls that execute the batch files on the server. The urls can be put in a web page where one clicks on them to run them.
Hey
I have the web control working fine by using the CGI file (some alterations to get it to connect) but what I would really like is an embedded web page slider control. It would be easy to create a ton of buttons on a page each with a unique link to the camera server but a variable slider control is where its at, like in the sequencing software. Anyone have some code or could point me in the right direction for that? Thanks.
hey
the first tele robot I saw was at a collage lab you could run it in a maze that could go up to a window and look out at the campus…it had a mirror so you could see the robot its self and you could get a “God’s eye view” if you got “lost”…
really kool… 8)
heck I’ll put my arm on line with a camera if sombody out there helps with the programing…!!
:mrgreen:
I’m not that familiar with some of the code but I can learn …really would like to setup something like this…
Below is a drop down gui I made. There are various types of javascript sliders available, but I’ve never gotten around to using them. Try doing a google search for javascript slider for info like the bottom link.
Below is another interesting free slider control download page. I’ll have to look at it more closely to see where one would put the servo control url in the code. Lot of gui possibilitys for positioning large numbers of servos.
I’ve done a little tinkering with the Tigra Slider Control java sliders in a web page. The below pix is what I’ve made so far. In this setup, one would position the slider to the desired position value, and then click the set button to send the servo to that position. The web slider control is in a browser popup window to keep it compact. Next I’ll need to make the batch files to go in the cgi folder and put the 127.0.0.1 url in the page.
