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