Android phone as a controller
Hello there :)
I'm on the edge of purchasing an android phone. Looking at specifications around i thought: "Hey but this is the perfect controller for a robot!!" It has an incredible inventory of useful stuff: gps, compass for navigation, wifi, bluetooth and cellular for communication, huge screens for UI, speaker for talking, plenty of cpu, camera, easily programmable, and so on, all packed in a small package, all low power! And all for as less as $200! What do you want more ??
There's only a drawback: there's no simple way to phisically connect a device to peripherals :(
Practically all android phones lack any kind of serial, spi or i2c connection. They have USB but client only.
Anyone know of some hack to resolve the issue ? I tought of opening the phone and try to identify an i2c bus, but it's a little too invasive :) some hack on the USB? Some SPI ?
@ Mon, 2011-04-11 14:50
someone must have had my
someone must have had my same idea :)
http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10585
@ Mon, 2011-04-11 18:57
Yes, that's an interesting
Yes, that's an interesting board.Using ADB for communication is a cool idea.
Something similar for Arduino is the MicroBridge. But you will need a additional USB Host shield
Based on that is the PropBridge for Propellor. USB Host can be implemented in Software.
I think about porting this to .NETMF for my FEZ Domino. FEZ domino has a builtin USB Host
@ Mon, 2011-04-11 16:47
I saw this last week and I'm
I saw this last week and I'm very tempted......very very tempted....
:)
@ Sat, 2010-09-11 01:20
For Android phones
Connecting an Arduino to an Android phone be possible with Amarino: http://www.amarino-toolkit.net/
I haven't tried, but I spotted the link on DIY Drones.
@ Sun, 2010-08-01 13:58
I noticed that the apple
I noticed that the apple Iphone has not been mentioned. Has anyone used the iphone to control a robot?
@ Sun, 2010-08-01 16:32
You have to jump through
You have to jump through quite a few hoops to dev on the iphone, though I'm sure some people are willing to do it.
@ Mon, 2010-08-02 11:18
Considering my power to
Considering my power to weight ratio is about that of a small elephant I can't see much hoop jumping in my future :p
@ Fri, 2010-07-30 21:33
headphone jack
@ Fri, 2010-07-30 15:49
Look at the cellbots
Look at the cellbots homepage. They have build a lot of robots controlled by Android phones. The easiest way is , to use Bluetooth as connection between robot and phone. So you will need a Bluetooth UART adapter for your robot, but you don't need to root your phone. A cellbot script for Arduino exists, which needs to be adapted for your robot. On the Android side. python scripts were used for the control programs, no Java programming needed. All necessary code can be found at Google code. For running Python an Android the android-scripting Environment (ASE) is needed.
I have tested it with my Ardubot controlled by a HTC Nexus One and it is working (most of the time). Sometimes the Bluetooth will not connect, but that is a minor issue. Until now I have not found the time to make a video, a tip & walkthrough, or writing my own scripts. Maybe this weekend I will have find the time for this.
@ Thu, 2010-07-29 16:37
Has anyone mentioned an FTDI chip?
The FTDI chip in an Arduino connects the USB to a serial interface. My Maemo OS2008 Nokia N800 has a driver for communicating through the USB (it's requires a bit of work to get it running each time).
Perhaps the Android phone has drivers somewhere for FTDI/USB-to-serial communications? A google search of "android arduino" or "android ftdi arduino" might help you there.
-John
(edit: oh yeah, the point: If you buy an "FTDI cable" (5V or 3.3V) it'll work just fine with the driver, and you can plug it in to your serial device.)
(pps -- After a quick search it looks like you might end up using a similar "usbserial.ko" and "ftdi_sio.ko" kernel module on your phone to what I use on my Nokia OS2008, probably along with the pyserial-2.5 library.)