WiFi Vehicle Group Project with Commercial Potential - who's interested? - Discussions

i've been involved in the UAV, ROV and RC fields for some time and i'd like to start a group project with the goal of building a WiFi controllable vehicle with commercial potential that is affordable by hobbyists

who's interested?

SHORTCOMINGS IN CURRENT PRODUCTS...
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the shortcomings i'm seeing in currently available vehicles in the sub $2000 or $3000 range are...

* lack of water resistance
* unpolished development platforms
* cheap parts
* proprietary software and control methods
* lack of WiFi platforms
* poor chassis design (not very capable on rough terrain), unless you get into the RC truck/crawler platforms
* short wireless range

PROJECT GOALS...
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* keep the project as open as possible, both hardware and software
* built to last
* weather resistance
* WiFi controllable, video streaming, bi-directional audio
* better than 30 meter range

THE "BOT"...
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i had been working on a very unique chassis design for the RC rock-crawler arena, but it never went anywhere (one company told me it would ruin RC crawling competition because it of its capabilities)

this chassis is pretty unique in several ways...

* no springs/struts
* only 3 different parts make up the entire chassis (and 2 are nearly identical), less fasteners and such (~10 parts total)
* very easy to produce - all parts are easily machined or molded using plastics or aluminum
* very capable on rough terrain
* no bearings
* 2 methods of steering - highly maneuverable
* MOW - motor on wheel design

of course i am not insisting that my design be used - it's just one alternative

i'm not good with electronics, but this project appears to be doable with all off-the-shelf parts (with the exception of possibly the chassis) like the Audrino with the WiFi Shield and some RC stuff. another cool alternative i found is the WiRC (http://wirc.dension.com/), but its big shortcoming is the video performance (325x288 @ 15 FPS)

PROJECT RESOURCES...
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here's some of the things that would be needed to complete this project...

* hardware - i'm mainly a mechanical guy and very weak with electronics and software development (other than AutoIt), so these gaps would need to be filled. i can do CAD and have parts made, but i have no resources for making parts, so someone with some basic machining equipment would be a plus. a cockpit software application would have to be coded to run the vehicle. personally i'm only interested in PC, but Android would probably be important as well. i wonder if Python might be a good language for this???

* funds - i have some money to toss in the hat and, at this point, i think this could be prototyped for about $1000-$1500. that includes a complete chassis and electronics

PERSONAL...
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as stated, i've been involved in RC/UAV/ROV stuff for quite awhile. one of my first projects was Heli-View - Remote Aerial Photography. here's a short clip of the platform i used, which is an X-Cell G23 Gas RC heli with a 3 axis camera gimbal...

http://vimeo.com/34531505

i then went to work for a start-up building small autonomous/semi-autonomous rotor-craft. here's one of the development platforms we used, carrying a little "rover" i hacked together...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5xKLtrTI_k

after NRI i started working on an ROV/RC ground platform, but then i moved and dropped the project. this is a video of the first and only prototype, which worked quite well, especially when considering i never designed it to climb steps. it's shown here without any attachments however (no camera, etc.)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXolrVx84xo

so, you can see, it's in my blood :)

i'd really like to get some people together and work on a community driven project that has some potential and isn't too difficult or expensive to develop

Very interesting stuff. I've actually been dabbling and thinking about similar things.

Your rover chassis is pretty interesting. When you described it, I suspected that is what you were building. I've seen a design like that for a full-size crawler. They used longitudinal beams just like that with hyraulic motors on each wheel, had virtually unlimited articulation.

I'm currently messing around with helis mostly. But I almost went ahead and bought a 1/8th scale MadTorque crawler from NitroRCX. Just a cheap thing, but it's got dual-motor (motor on axle) which is better than a driveshaft. The key thing is it can climb stairs. That's what's needed for a serious ground rover.

But I didn't bother because it seems like parts support is pretty bad.

The only problem is yours seems a bit low on ground clearance. Doesn't it get hung up in the middle? I think it would be better if you raised it a bit more, moved the pivot point upwards so the center box is higher.

Anyway, on the Mad Torque, I was going to replace the center "chassis" with a welded aluminum box with the suspension mounts on it. Pretty simple really.

But for me, being amphibious is a pretty big deal. So I've also toyed with the idea of a non-articulating 6 or 8-wheeled machine, sort of like an Argo ATV, or an APC.

The idea of deploying it by RC heli is also something I'm looking at. I became a supporter of the OpenGrab project. It's interesting because it would work to deploy, as well as retrieve the rover. Whever it arrives, I might try picking up something like a Losi mini-crawler or something. Mount a camera on it and give that a shot.

Replies

zach w January 4, 2013 at 4:13pm

Hello,

I think OpenROV (http://openrov.com/) could be one source of inspiration. They've used an ethernet umbilical cord that could be replaced with wifi. Using a small linux computer on the rover means you can benefit from the broad range of usb web-cams and wifi dongles available. OpenROV uses a web-based client (the beagle runs a http server), the limitations of web-based apps are slowly reducing, e.g. audio capture http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro
Carl Campbell January 4, 2013 at 2:31pm

Edited the section about weponization as a violation of rule 6, I know it is a youtube video but that is not the kind of thing we do around here.

6) No discussion of military applications of UAVs. This site is just about amateur and civilian use.
Rob_Lefebvre January 4, 2013 at 2:25pm

Very interesting stuff. I've actually been dabbling and thinking about similar things.

Your rover chassis is pretty interesting. When you described it, I suspected that is what you were building. I've seen a design like that for a full-size crawler. They used longitudinal beams just like that with hyraulic motors on each wheel, had virtually unlimited articulation.

I'm currently messing around with helis mostly. But I almost went ahead and bought a 1/8th scale MadTorque crawler from NitroRCX. Just a cheap thing, but it's got dual-motor (motor on axle) which is better than a driveshaft. The key thing is it can climb stairs. That's what's needed for a serious ground rover.

But I didn't bother because it seems like parts support is pretty bad.

The only problem is yours seems a bit low on ground clearance. Doesn't it get hung up in the middle? I think it would be better if you raised it a bit more, moved the pivot point upwards so the center box is higher.

Anyway, on the Mad Torque, I was going to replace the center "chassis" with a welded aluminum box with the suspension mounts on it. Pretty simple really.

But for me, being amphibious is a pretty big deal. So I've also toyed with the idea of a non-articulating 6 or 8-wheeled machine, sort of like an Argo ATV, or an APC.

The idea of deploying it by RC heli is also something I'm looking at. I became a supporter of the OpenGrab project. It's interesting because it would work to deploy, as well as retrieve the rover. Whever it arrives, I might try picking up something like a Losi mini-crawler or something. Mount a camera on it and give that a shot.

This reply was deleted.