Control r/c electrics via a pc

bothakr · Post by **bothakr** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:29 am

Control an r/c vehicle or robot via a pc.

http://www.endurance-rc.com/pctx.html

JPKNHTP · Post by **JPKNHTP** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 9:49 am

-JPKNHTP

bothakr · Post by **bothakr** » Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:40 am

HighFrequency · Post by **HighFrequency** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:32 pm

Yeah who cares? If I already have the radio... why not just use that to control my r/c vehicle?

bothakr · Post by **bothakr** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 11:51 am

"Yeah who cares? If I already have the radio... why not just use that to control my r/c vehicle?"

Because then it would still just be an r/c vehicle. Many walking robots have very complex leg movements (robo one, hexapod). Can you reliably control the legs of a walking robot from an r/c transmitter?

With a little "outside of the box" thinking I came up with these uses:

Autonomous robot...
Complex r/c controls made simple....robo one?
Steering wheel interface to an r/c car....
Web interface for an r/c car...

It really doesnâ€™t have to be an r/c car. Iâ€™ve seen many robots that use an r/c system for control. This system is a cheap and easy way to get computer control of an r/c robot, car, uav, etc.

I created a line following robot with a wireless camera, 2 full rotation servos, an r/c receiver, and battery. Wireless cam sends images to the pc. The PC then processes the image to determine the angle relative to the line. PC then sends commands to correct the direction via the PCTx interface.

Sambuchi · Post by **Sambuchi** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 1:23 pm

bothakr wrote:"With a little "outside of the box" thinking I came up with these uses:

Autonomous robot...

If the robot is Autonomous... why would you use R/C?

HighFrequency · Post by **HighFrequency** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 3:50 pm

bothakr wrote:I created a line following robot with a wireless camera, 2 full rotation servos, an r/c receiver, and battery. Wireless cam sends images to the pc. The PC then processes the image to determine the angle relative to the line. PC then sends commands to correct the direction via the PCTx interface.

If the PC does the thinking, is the "robot" really a robot? I think it's just a glorified sensor on wheels. But the brains on the wheels, then you've got yourself a robot.

hakbot · Post by **hakbot** » Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:30 pm

If the PC does the thinking, is the "robot" really a robot? I think it's just a glorified sensor on wheels. But the brains on the wheels, then you've got yourself a robot.

My mistake, I guess the proper word would be tele-autonomous. When I think of an autonomous robot, I think of it being able to operate itself. Regardless of where the brains are, the robot would be performing its task.

There are certain situations where a tele-autonomous robot would be beneficial. In an environment where the robot could be lost easily, it makes sense to keep the expensive brains from being damaged or destroyed. Desktop PC's are also arguably easier to program and work with than microcontrollers. More powerful calculations can also be performed on remote PC's or you could control a whole group of robots from a single PC.

But you know...the PCTx can tie into an existing robot with onboard brains. It would make a great backup system.

Sambuchi · Post by **Sambuchi** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 5:49 am

I always wanted a wireless widget that could make "ANY" JTAG a wireless JTAG.

JTAG = Programmer

I've seen some "homemade" wireless JTAG' with Freescale parts.. and I'm sure you could buy one for a particular micro.. but it would be nice to have a wireless connection to a PIC and MSP to FLASH the micro....

HighFrequency · Post by **HighFrequency** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:32 pm

Oh man... wireless programmers. Brilliant.

ku7485 · Post by **ku7485** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 6:52 am

Ahhh! MrAl zap that post above!

bodgy · Post by **bodgy** » Sun Oct 15, 2006 4:32 pm

Ahhh! MrAl zap that post above!

Done!!!

Colin

slamer · Post by **slamer** » Thu Mar 01, 2007 1:02 pm

Actually controlling a mobile machine Remotely with a PC has a lot of advantages. One of the major ones is you wouldn't have to haul around the weight of the BIG computer and it's power source. The robot could still have autonomus functions and a small PIC processor or computer system to keep it from bumping into things.

In fact here's a system that demonstrates this pretty well and it even uses the PC for voice commands as well. This system is for the Robo Sapien V2. But you could read the infra red signals or a RF link with most of the PIC's available with a bit of hacking.

http://www.robodance.com/

http://www.evosapien.com/movies/voice-c ... mo-hiq.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wsFwCnzRqE

If you put a wireless camera on the robot, so you could see where it was at then you would have a nice system to play with.

A combination of sensors on the machine and the ability to re-task the machine remotely is how the Rovers drive around on Mars. That seems to have proven the idea...

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Control r/c electrics via a pc

Control r/c electrics via a pc

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