Jon Bennett created a nifty wireless telepresence bot out of a thrift store RC car, a Linksys WRT54GL router running the Open-WRT Linux firmware, a network camera, and a microcontroller. He’s built two variations: one controlled by a PIC microprocessor, and the other controlled by an Arduino. You can use whichever processor you are more comfortable with, and make one of your own for very little cost using this guide.
The goal of this article is to give a high-level overview of the project and provide some implementation details of the software and electronics. It is not meant to be a step-by-step how-to guide, but there should be enough information for someone with motivation and some background knowledge in electronics and software to be able to make their own Wifi Robot. All of the source code is being released under the terms of the GNU GPL v2, so by all means, use the code, and improve it!
This is one of those basic projects that you can take in a number of directions. Jon’s guide will get you through interfacing with your typical RC car electronics and controlling it remotely. From here, it’s all software. Someone should take a stab at adding an image processing routine on the remote end to create an autonomous sidewalk cruiser.
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