Wednesday, February 1, 2012

HexBot Arduino - Netduino Wireless IR Controller

I got a new IR toy, a HexBot, and wanted to create an IR controller similar to what I did with my helicopter.
I also got a new Netduino Plus board that I wanted to try!

I ran into some problems with the netduino board while trying to create a simple IR emitter, because the netduino utilizes the .NET Micro Framework, which generates managed code and hence can't do real-time to the microsecond responses to generate the IR pulses.

So I went back to the arduino board, and used the old decoding program to get the pulses.
It's quite a simpler device, with just four buttons. The IR pulses are in the arduino code attached below.

But, I wanted to use my netduino too! so I created a program (utilizing NeonMika Webserver) to load a html page that shows the possible moves, and goes back to the server on each click, to activate ports.
I first tried to get SPI working between netduino and arduino, but it didn't work right away, and since I just need 4 flags, one for each direction, I found it easier to just allocate 4 pins for the communication between the devices.
Netduino pins 1-4 to arduino 4-7. Once pin 4 is ON, the arduino code sends the forward pulse. Same for each other direction.

Attached is the code for the webserver, and the arduino!

For now you can control the HexBot with a cellphone (on the same network) by browsing to the netduino (port 8080).

I have a few ideas on what to move next. Maybe store paths and image recognition to identify obstacles?

Here is the robot walking.



And here the new remote control!

A closer look at the setup, Arduino and Netduino playing nice


Netduino Plus webpage used:


And the Arduino code to handle the netduino requests and emit IR pulses:

4 comments:

  1. Can you put up a video of your robot walking :) ?

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  2. Thanks so much for putting the bot raw ir codes in here. I struggled all day to get my arduino to control one of these. my raw codes were not working for some reason. And then I stumbled over your blog an hour before midnight! :-)

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  3. Hi,

    Di you have a parts list and/or network diagram by any chance?

    Very nice work - will be using this in a home automation project I have set myself - thanks

    Btw - what is the range on your ir transmitter?

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