Dexter industries have shown how to use their Dexter wifi sensor, in combination with web sockets, to control a NXT robot directly from an iOS device (iPhone or iPad) or an Android. You can read more at their blog post.
This project presents a leJOS class to interface with the NXTBee, along with some sample Java code in leJOS showing how to send and receive data. I’ve written extensively about the Dexter Industries NXTBee sensor before. The NXTBee provides long-range serial wireless communication for the Lego Mindstorms NXT.
I wanted to draw a live map showing the progress of the Lego Street View car as it drove outside. The dGPS sensor does a great job of plotting the car’s location, and the NXTBee provides a perfect high-speed long-distance serial link back to my Mac at home base. But how to display a live map that is updated with the car’s location in real-time? What platform should I use to develop a user-interface to the control the car and to plot map data?
You might remember the original Lego Street View Car I built in April. It was very popular at the Google Zeitgeist event earlier this year. I wanted to re-build the car to only use the Lego Mindstorms NXT motors. I was also keen to make it look more….car-like. The result, after 4 months of experimentation, is version 2.0 of the Lego Street View Car.
This Street View Car was showcased at the World Robot Olympiad event in Abu Dhabi in November 2011.
For this project I wanted to build a webserver using the new Dexter Industries Wifi sensor for the NXT. Dexter have produced a very exciting wifi sensor that you program through the RS485 port on port 4 of your NXT. The RS485 port can communicate with the wifi sensor at speeds up to 921600 baud, so your NXT can have high-speed Internet access!
The Dexter Industries dGPS device provides the NXT with access to a real-time GPS sensor. The dGPS is a very useful device is you plan to do any mobile robotics that involve navigation and path-planning. Not only can it tell your robot where it is, but it will also give the direction of travel, speed of travel and allow for basic navigation.
