Hello everyone out there!
Some weeks ago I wrote in my first little article about the fun that some of my friends and me had together while running a broadcast from the airfield and maybe you can still remember that I mentioned how great it would be to give to the virtual guests the possibility to control something via the internet on the hosts side, too.
Well, I am really very happy to let you know that my friend Wayne from the UK and me concluded just yesterday a little open source project that made this wish come true!
We know of course that there exist a lot of great working projects like this already on the internet, but our goal was mainly to find something that is simple to use and that could be combined with our existing hardware to hold the costs as low as possible.
After some research we decided to base our project on a Aduino Leonardo because it can be ordered for less then 20$ in near to every country and works with every computer that has a USB interface.
The following video will show to you how the system works in practice, interesting is also to mention that the distance between Wayne and me is just about 2000 Kilometers / 1240 Miles.
I know, my spoken english is even worst then the written one but I hope that I could made myself clear...
How does it work?
Basically it is very easy. The client or guest just need a gamepad and the clientsoftware. This software is sending the incoming commands over the internet (using the UDP protocol) to the receiving computer (Server) who sends it to the arduino. The arduino converts the recived commands into a PPM signal and can be connected to the trainer port of the most remotes (or directly to a TX Module as shown in the video).
To send back the video signal we just used Skype during our test out of convenience, but we even think already about a software release that could include the transmission of the video signal, too.
As you can imagine we are just at the beginning and there is still much to do, but our successful test showed that it can work out - and that even with a really low latency on a very long distance.
If you are interested to work with us on this open source project or to download the actual software version (of course it will be always 100% for free!) then please follow Wayne aka CurryKitten on his Sourceforge website.
He is preparing right now the material and will publish everything that you need during the next few days. Well, if you want to then you can order already your Aduino Leonardo in the meanwhile... ;)
Of course we are also happy about any feedback in comment section, ideas, suggestions and critic are always welcome as long as they are constructive. Thx a lot for the time that you invested to read this article.
Raising the bar.
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You could have another arduino on the client (controller) side, that would convert PPM from a hacked transmitter and send it to the internet via Ethernet shield. On the server (RC model) side you could have a wifi router and another arduino with wifi shield on the plane, that would act directly as "receiver". That way the controller would be completely computer-free.
I'm interested to see, where this goes :)
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Yes, a Copter in ACC with RTH would be for sure the best solution when doing our flitetest - i guess we will do it exactly in this way.
I just cant wait anymore to give it finally a try, all this is just exciting ;D
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It seems like if it can interpret a PS2 controller, it shouldn't be too much difficult to mod it so interpret the four signals from the joysticks of my 9x... but then again I am very new to the hardware side of things.
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I am sorry but i think that you can not use ur T9X in no way until u will reflashed the rom. What does happen when u plug in a 3.5 mm stereo cable, does the display show up in a normal way or is it staying blank?
Reguarding the software + arduino. I am sure that it would be possible to use a Remote like the T9X instead of a gaming pad, we just used Gaming pads for now to make it possible for guests without any RC hardware to join our project in a easy way. But sooner or later there will be for sure a version that supports the 9X, too.
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http://kiwitricopter.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/arduino-xbee-receiver-arduino-nano-v30.html
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8mGA5b7qZ15dFJHaEdxbmF5dTQ/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8mGA5b7qZ15b1pDOHA1SnU3cEE/edit?usp=sharing
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Right now i started to move to a new flat and so i am very busy during the next weeks - but when i am done i will take a closer look and see if i can learn something out of it (if my brain can handle it ^^)
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I initially tried my Xbee remote system with Netduino which runs .NET. micro framework with some difficulty. The Arduino is way better for real-time stuff and so easy to program, If you are as old a me you probably learned to code in C too.
Really like your project, It would be cool to web cast from a space plane like David Windestål of RCExplorer fame built
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Btw. the project from David was really crazy - who knows - maybe we will do something like this one day, too :)
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It sends a packet 50 times a second to the RX which catches it and rotates the servos
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i have two UNO's and that looks like a project! great job!
i wonder if a cellular shield could be used as well???
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Could be worth a look at http://hidemyass.com who are a general VPN proxy service see if iit does the same thing.
Alternately if you have the SSH demon running on the host which is commanding the Arduino routed out to the www you could putty listening into it directly and set the controller application to connect via sock proxy through putty on port 1080 which is simple enough. I suspect the latency would be greatly reduced as the routers on the www can't packet switch so much with the encrypted SSH stream as with normal http
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It would be great to create a cheap system (instead of using a notebook) making a comby out of a raspberry + arduino with all the needed software - in this way a lot more people could use this technology.
Right now i am in a house moving but as soon as this is over ill have the time to go deeper into the materies and to get a Raspberry. Wayne already got one to see what we can do with it, too :)
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