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Microcontroller and Joystick questions
Chrystal Cain from United States  [1 posts]
16 year
I am looking into using RoboRealm.  We do not have a kit, but have not decided on a microcontroller.  The purpose of the robot is to communicate over wifi.  We'd like to use a network camera to view the robot's environment, but want to make sure that RoboRealm allows us to use a joystick over the internet for control of the robot.  What microcontrollers are "compatible" with RoboRealm aside from the Axon controller, and further, what joysticks are compatible and does this control traverse the internet?  

Thanks.
Anonymous 16 year
Chrystal,

In terms of microcontrollers, most of them that accept a serial interface can be controlled via RoboRealm. That requires use of the Serial module in RoboRealm and typically your own communication protocol (ie when the MCU sees an 'f' it knows to go forward, and when it sees a X it knows to do Y....). These commands would be sent by the RR serial module and would have to have something running on the MCU to understand what these mean.

The MCU's that RoboRealm has built in modules for are

Axon
Basic Stamp
Serializer
Blackfin (part of Surveyor SRV)

in addition to the MCU's present in other consumer robotics systems such as the Lego, Vex, etc.

If there is an MCU that you'd like to use and are having issues with communication with the device let us know. We're always interested in integrating more popular MCU's that people want to use.

In terms of joysticks, anything that supports DirectX should be fine. The joystick can be run across the internet by installing RoboRealm on both sides and then using the Distributor Client/Server modules to connect the two RoboRealm instances with each other. When this happens the two instances can easily share images and variables. The variables would be what contains the joystick commands and thus would be transmitted over the internet.

If running RoboRealm on both sides is not possible you'd probably need to code a joystick client that reads the joystick and sends the values over the internet using RoboRealm's API to a running instance of RoboRealm that is connected to the MCU. This just depends on how much custom coding your are will to do, using two RR instances for testing would be a good first step and quicker to get running.

What network camera are you thinking of using?

STeven.


Anonymous 16 year
If you are just getting started you might want to look at either the spykee or Rovio Telepresence robots.  I just picked up a second spykee for $135 dollars it gives you a ready to run telepresence robot that you can control via joystick in roborealm.  This lets you focus on the computer vision part instead of the hardware. For some examples of spykee running under roborealm see:
http://profmason.com/?p=808
http://profmason.com/?p=819

have fun!
mmason

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