Asked — Edited
Resolved Resolved by thetechguru!

Wifi Robot

I got an elechouse TLG10UA03 kit which I have up and working now, but can't get ARC to connect to my EZ-B board yet.

I have verified that I can send and recieve characters thru the wifi TLG10UA03 link using the kits USB to Serial TTL converter with realterm on one computer and telnet to it over wifi on a second computer. Ascii text goes back and forth just fine. So my serial link is up.
I connected it to my robot with a 3.3V regulator as the power source (the ez-b 3.3V supply didn't seem to have enough current to make it work correctly) and I can see the wifi modules web page and get a connect with telnet to it. On telnet I never see anything come from the ez-b board and when I put in the ip address and port in the ARC connect box, ARC seems to indicate that it is connected but my robot does not appear to be recieving any commands. It does take a long time for ARC to come back with the connect which makes me think I am just getting a timeout. Not sure what piece of the puzzle I am missing. I have tried swapping the TX and RX pins between the EZ-B and the wifi TLG10UA03 link but the results are the same both ways. No feedback in a telnet session and ARC just says connected but no real connection is made.

So I am kind of stuck at the moment with that part of my project.

Also I have been looking for a wifi camera that can replace the current wireless one that is part of the ez-b kit.

I was wondering if something link the AI Ball Mini Wifi Spy Camera IP Wireless Camera would work with the ARC software to provide a true wifi robot. ( http://www.thumbdrive.com/aiball/ )

Any suggestion for the camera would be appreciated. I noticed someone had a camera working with X-Bee. Could that approach work with a wifi module? Not sure about interference with two wifi sources on the same frequencies on the robot.

I am trying to get a robot that can roam throughout my whole house and yard.


ARC Pro

Upgrade to ARC Pro

Unleash your robot's full potential with the cutting-edge features and intuitive programming offered by Synthiam ARC Pro.

#17  

The camera controls in ARCs should let you select any camera, so if your PC has a connection to a wifi camera it should show up in the drop down list.

When you say "switchable between Bluetooth and wifi" can you expand on your idea?

If you want both on the same default I/o lines on the EZ-B board you'll need some sort of electronic controls to switch between the two, or manual controls at least. Then you'd probably need to refresh your connection the ARC software for the new communication method.

#18  

The idea is to normally use the wifi link set up in infrastructure mode so my robot could roam around the house. If the robot needs to visit someone (perhaps the local FIRST robotics team) he could be switched to Bluetooth. So a simple mechanical toggle switch would work for me. As mentioned previously I am considering a 4pdt switch. Gnd would be permanently connected to both the Bluetooth module and the wifi module. The 1st pole of the switch toggles between the Bluetooth tx pin and the wifi tx pin. The 2nd pole toggles between the Bluetooth RX pin and the wifi RX pin. The 3rd pole toggles +5V to the Bluetooth module and has no connection to the wifi. The 4th pole toggles +3.3V to the wifi module has no connection to the Bluetooth module. The sparkfun switch I mentioned earlier in the post has a center off position, which I don't need. The center off will make sure that the switch is break before make. Since the switch will only be toggled when the robot is switched off everything should work. In theory I could toggle between the two modules with the robot Live, but it is not something I need to do. I am considering putting both a wifi and the current ez-b camera on the robot to support both modes as. Well. After all a robot needs two eyes doesn't it?

#19  

Here is a Schematic of the ELECHOUSE TLG10UA03 as it is currently hooked up to my EZ-B board.

User-inserted image

More on the settings that worked for me. Based on one of the Posts that I was pointed toward with the excellent help, I set the the Elechouse board to 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit. (This is not the factory default). Before I attempted any wifi setup.

#20  

Here is a Schematic of the ELECHOUSE as currently hooked up to my EZ-B board.

User-inserted image

#21  

Here is a Schematic of the ELECHOUSE as currently hooked up to my EZ-B board.

User-inserted image

Same schematic just upload it twice by accident since the EZ-robot said told me it had an error. I have been getting it every time lately.

#22  

Here are the settings for the elechouse wifi uart using the elechouse uart configuration software. I have blocked out my specific information.

User-inserted image

Here is the more important part. Baud Rate Settings under advanced. Remember once the baud rate setting are saved to the elechouse you have to change your com port to match.

User-inserted image

#23  

At this point the Wifi Uart was up and running on the Wifi network and its web page is available. The URL is the IPaddress you set up using the elechouse uart configuration software.

The setting to turn it into a pass thru uart are next. The are done using the wifi uarts web server.

The settings should look something like this with of course the appropriate changes to match the wifi network.

User-inserted image

and the advance setting will look like this.

User-inserted image

The next step is the Virtual Com software.

#24  

The Virtual Com port software is available from this url:

http://www.hw-group.com/products/hw_vsp/index_en.

The setting on the virtual com port software should look like this:

User-inserted image

Note the port number is 6666 to match up with the basic setting in the wifi uart web page.

The other important setting on the virtual com port are:

User-inserted image

Be sure to save your setting using the save to ini button.

The next step for me was a test with realterm software to make sure the wifi uart was a true pass thru device.