Radio Control Help Please (Arduino)

Hi Ben,

Jeremy Blum has a great book called Exploring Arduino.

http://www.exploringarduino.com/

Chapter 11 covers using Xbee Radios to set up a wireless link. This would be just a beginning but once you have a link you can begin to program the functions of your robot. Keep us posted on your progress.

John

IR control is Radio control using the Infrared wavelengths.

Adapting to other forms is easy if you understand how the IR control works.

Using other wavelengths may entail different encoding methods better suited to their frequency ranges.

I cover IR radio control in one of my VY Canis Majoris posts.

Just holler if you're interested and I'll repost it for you.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks! It would help a lot if you reposted it.

Essentially the Radio link can easily be setup, the structure of the data can be preset to an array of data bits and these bits can be used by the receiver to turn on/off the controls. Pretty simple for on/off control.

Now if there is a need to get a proportional system running, e.g. steering via a pot or speed control you will need to transmit a little bit more in the way of a complex signal as the analogue value of your input will need to be transferred. Again that can be handled in the structure of the data that you define and the analogue signal could then be extracted and used to drive a PWM servo system of sorts.

Great to see another member exploring the Arduino platform.

I am still getting to grips with mine.

Cheers

Warren.

Hi Ben!

First, since it's not clear from your post, I wanted to make absolutely sure  you know there's a difference between radio (RF) and infrared (IR).
-IR typically has wider ranger and has a much lower energy cost, but requires a line of sight from source to sensor, with something transparent as a protective shield in some cases.
-RF can work through many materials, if you need to cover the sensor, or need to control it from different directions, where a clear path to the sensor is not practical or doable.

Which you are using typically doesn't change your programming, other than sometimes what files must be included, because you're typically just reading a value from the digital port it's plugged into. It typically returns a number or other data to the Arduino based on the sensor being used to receive the remote. I believe there are packages for reading data from those sensors, but I always prefer to use a remote that just returns a digital number.

When you use one of them, you can just use a "Case" statement, based on reading/testing what each button's value is in the serial monitor, example here if you need to know how to use the serial monitor: https://cdn-learn.adafruit.com/downloads/pdf/adafruit-arduino-lesson-5-the-serial-monitor.pdf

Once you (figure out/write down) what each input from the sensor for your remote returns digitally (let's say you press "up", and it returns "3" in the monitor, you write a case statement for input 3, and do the instructions either by writing them directly under case, or calling the function/statement. A case example if you need it can be seen here: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Reference/SwitchCase

Sorry if this seems a bit wordy, but I reading sensors directly when possible is usually better to customize than returning data from a package/parser, which I'm guessing is what you looked up and found to be confusing.

Also, please remember to select a best answer, for whichever you believe is the best, rather than leaving the topic open.
Good luck!

Thanks for clarifying this should be pretty darn easy.

     -Ben

It is my pleasure, Ben!

"Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe." ~Galileo Galilei

I feel when we keep this in mind with electronics, it's easiest to do anything (and everything) we want to do.

I'm having to deal with A LOT of sensors for some of my recent projects.... you can check my posts (feel free to add or follow btw!), and see I'm planning to build a mech, and have already build some other robots, for house security to email my phone if something other than my rabbits moved. :3

Don't confuse the poor fellow!

IR is only a tiny portion of the RF spectrum (and thus has a narrower bandwidth by definition).

It's the small area of the RF spectrum below red visible light which Herschel discovered in 1800 when doing prismatic experiments.

With all due respect, going into the information you just did I feel would be more confusing and impertinent information for someone just learning....

For most practical purposes, RF frequencies used refers to VHF and UHF when it comes to electronics. While you're not wrong, I felt what I told him would be most pertinent to helping him get on the right track, at least moreso than a history lesson of a broader scale.

Happy Friday!