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The Vision Command camera was great - until you discovered it had a cord :) and thereby understood that Lego *faked* the robot in robotics inventions commercial...) This is my very first post and so I don't know if this idea is new, but I'm (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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I don't know about other places, but here cell phone service is expensive to use as a robot communication method. Perhaps a "personal radio" (They have a range of about 2 miles) would be better, and data could be transmitted through tones. ----- (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) It's even more than that really. Sending live video over IR really isn't feasible - there isn't anywhere near enough bandwidth to do that. What you *REALLY* want is to have enough on-board CPU power in the robot to process the images locally - (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) Text messaging is cheap in most countries...and if your phone can send email (mine can) then you can get the message directly into your PC. (...) Modem tones? I guess so - but you'd need to build some electronics to do that - and it might just (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) email (...) I didn't really think about text messaging - pressing buttons multiple times to enter code words could get tricky. (...) I was thinking more along the lines of using the RCX's builtin beep codes - though I just realized that (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Yes - but these are computers - they can send each other messages in binary - you only need two buttons really. Dunno how a computer could recieve text messages though. Email would be better...but still very slow. (...) You can't generate DTMF (...) (21 years ago, 4-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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"Steve Baker" <lego-robotics@crynwr.com> wrote in message news:3E171F4A.400050...ail.net... (...) :) (...) inventions (...) I'm (...) IR-connected (...) enough (...) would (...) processing. (...) legally (...) country. (...) at (...) Ok, if radio (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) You could use an alternate firmware that can generate any tone, a custom modulation-demodulation protocol, and a condenser microphone soldered onto a sensor wire to send at reasonable bitrates for robot communication. Of course, it would take (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) The problem is that the 27MHz frequencies are fairly tightly restricted in some countries. Here in the US, it's pretty much open-season, it's used by CB radios, radio controlled models - and various toys. However, in other countries (the UK (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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Nick Tarleton wrote: > I don't know how fast the speaker can change frequency > or how soon it can be reacted to, so I can't get a bandwidth estimate. The telephone system can (at best) transmit at 56Kbaud (that's the speed of the fastest possible (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Thanks for all the modem input guys, but I think you're getting too ambitious! The communication I was thinking of would consist of maybe dialling+10 button presses on the cel phone. The other end would be waiting for these combinations, just like (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Hmm I chose cel phones because they are pretty standard products (unlike Radio links etc), simple to use (few presses) and so on, but of course, any link to a unit with memory/cpu could be an expansion... (...) ...Like an IR link to another (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) "All ideas are stupid until someone proves they work." :D No, I've been thinking the same thing. (So it can't be stupid haha). A PDA with built-in webcam (and mike) + hotwiring an RCX input to a serial port on the PDA would probably be the (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Well, to find outline of objects you'd need a low-res (easy to simplify and automatically filters out irrelevant details), color (to avoid two objects of the same material getting their outlines fused together by the image processing (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) There's a caveat you miss, it is limited using the forms of modulation that modems use (ie FSK derived). For example ISDN uses a different sort of modulation (ie Q-modulation) and it does 128k over the same phone lines. I use ISDN to connect (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Yes - using the RCX as a fairly dumb motor controller and sensor input device makes a lot of sense. I've been doing that with the (even more primitive) Scout computers using the RCX as the 'brain'. (URL) modern PDA would make an excellent (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Yeah - but the amount of CPU horsepower to do that (on the robot remember) is comparable to the horsepower you'd need to extract the edges and do some simple image recognition. So why transmit the image at all? (...) Yes - but they don't (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Yes - but when they install ISDN or DSL on your line, they switch out some electronics at the telephone exchange - remove some line filtering, pull out the digital part of the stream from the analog part, etc, etc. If you just have the audio (...) (21 years ago, 5-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) That struck me just as I left to visit my father - someone's gonna have to program the thing ... ;) Well, I guess you'd just have to buy the PDA with the most open architecture. And the first (maybe only!) language you'd see would most likely (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | RE: A Generic Idea
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Steve Baker summarized neatly: The big design issue is whether to have the brain near or far. If far, you need more communications bandwidth, but you can have a mongo brain. If near, you can minimize your investment in communications overhead, but (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) I summarized neatly too, while he got into the intricacies of DTMF and Phreaking in the 70s... :D (...) It wasn't a generic solution, it was a generic idea. The generic cel phone would provide a generic link to any generic PC in the world. You (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Sigh. I wish you would read the rest of my message and discover that I address that issue(!), instead of chopping the messages up into neat pieces which you can "deal with". (...) See? (...) Who talked about live video? I was talking about (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Speaking of PDAs, specifically Pocket PC's, the HP iPAC 5450 has Consumer IR, will that automatically take care of the comm thing with the RCX? Then I guess that would be ideal, tho expensive ($700 in Sweden). But that's provided there is a (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) It's actually worse than that since 56k is only 33.6k upstream unless you have a special line. Most ISP's have these special lines giving their customers 53k/56k downstream. The 53k limit is an FCC thing imposed on older modems that was lifted (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) My aging Agenda PDA does integer work at about the speed of a 100MHz Pentium. Floating point performance is terrifyingly slow though. Since the Agenda is a couple of years old now, I'd expect PDA's to be two or three times faster by now - so (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) When did I say that? Talking to a parallel port in C is easy in most OS's. ---...--- Steve Baker ---...--- HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net> WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com> HomePage : (URL) : (4 URLs) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Ah - OK. But other things in the world (like people) are moving around - it's not always going to be possible to stop, capture a static image - and then reliably navigate based on it. I guess there are niches where such a robot could be (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) I extrapolated your complaints that PDAs have OS's where the c compilers don't have libraries to do the simplest things... : ("You need more than that though. Along with your C compiler, you need a set of libraries that give you access to the (...) (21 years ago, 7-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Yes, I think the point isn't whether or not the robot has enough oomph to recognize faces or things like that :D The point is that you can do a *lotta* fun stuff with a camera or mike in a robot, if ONLY you could give the RCX a link to something (...) (21 years ago, 7-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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| | Re: A Generic Idea
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(...) To clarify, I should say that the software with the cam would probably not even install on a PPC, since it doesn't even install on XP... (21 years ago, 7-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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To get a PDA to interface to RCX is easy, i am right in thinking that TV remote is the same freqency etc as RCX? If so go to pdawin.com and get TVRemote (URL) i use version 3.1 which can learn commands, and we can display this on the PC and control (...) (21 years ago, 7-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Yes - I can control the RCX from my SONY Television remote (which is a programmable one) by 'teaching' it key commands from the Lego Remote - so if your PDA can act like a learning remote - it can drive the RCX and Scout bricks. (...) Yep - (...) (21 years ago, 7-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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You might be interested in the CMUcam. See (URL) CMUcam is a new low-cost, low-power sensor for mobile robots. You can use CMUcam to do many different kinds of on-board, real-time vision processing. Because CMUcam uses a serial port, it can be (...) (21 years ago, 8-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) Now there are TV remotes that are computer controlled, so we don't even have to move our opposable thumb? Technology strides ever forward :PPP How would you get the TV remote control to talk to BrickOS or the RCX software though? (...) I don't (...) (21 years ago, 8-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Yeah, yeah yeah. :D (21 years ago, 8-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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That IS interesting. I don't intend building a robot out of plywood and buying controller boards, that's no challenge :P But it would be nice to adapt the serial link to the RCX and see what, if anything you could do with it! <Waits for Steve to (...) (21 years ago, 8-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) OK now I'm less hooked on it. :P The common bottleneck and problem seems to be communicating with the RCX. Here's an idea: Celphone Handsfree Jack -> 1200 or 2400 baud Modem -> LEGO serial IR tower -> RCX Would this work, if the link was (...) (21 years ago, 8-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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(...) have (...) Yep its brilliant isn't it :) you can even do the whole house via the PC and x10 if u want :) (...) As this is meant to be a roverbot, i was envisiging learning the RCX remote control buttons to send mssg A and therefore make it go (...) (21 years ago, 9-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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