26 Nov 08 The Robot: Hardware working and ready to go, a few minor glitches

Robot

Progress has as always been good lately. The robot boots up quickly and appears on the wireless LAN, with openssh running. The internal Atheros miniPCI wasn’t doing the trick and wireless performance was shaky at best. I’m using an Alfa Networks USB adapter (r8187) and an 8dBi gain antenna now, so this has some distance now!

I was also getting frustrated with the laggyness of the board while VLC was running for streaming audio and video and so I decided on an IP Camera (Edimax), which is connected directly to the LAN port on the Alix board (I don’t have any reason to use it for anything else).

The motor control script works well and the device is responsive. At this point I can drive the device around

Robot

relatively easily and accurately, stream video and audio back to my laptop, which again is connected wirelessly.

Using ‘espeak’ you can easily generate a synthesized voice to provide easy text to voice:

Everything is working great and I’m pleased so far. The only reason why there isn’t a video up yet is because I haven’t had the time! There will be one up shortly.
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Tags: 8dbi, alfa networks, alix, antnna, atheros, cf card, distance sensor, edimax, espeak, gain, hardware sensors, ip camera, Linux, motor control, phidgets, picolcd, power consumption, r8187, SD card, serial, usb, usb to ttl, vlc

14 Nov 08 The Robot: A body, Sensors and Good Progress

Progress is going really well and I’m happy so far. Unfortunately I didn’t want to show the body yet as it is so far from finished but as I haven’t posted an update in a while I decided to just go with it.

Front

Head

The body is ever so slightly lop sided by a few mm here and there which is a shame however from a short distance you wouldn’t notice, it stands up straight and weight distribution is equal throughout the base plate so I’m happy with it. Ok, ‘professionally’ the body’s a mess however for my zero experience in that kind of work, I’m reasonably happy.

This is the front of it, top is a mounted webcam, to the left of that is a phidgets temperature sensor and top right is a phidgets light sensor. I am waiting to add 8 colored status LEDs around a small flat panel 5v stereo speaker as a ‘mouth’ (I got it from a Nokia phone bundle).
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Tags: battery pack, distance sensor, IR remotes, irda, LED, light sensor, Linux, Linux robot, MAX232, motor controller, nimh, phidget, phidgets sensor, picolcd, picopsu, polycarbonate glue, sabertooth, serial port, stereo speaker, temperature sensor, the robot, usb phidgets, usb sensor kit, webcam