I was motivated for this project by my - at project start - two-year old daughter who always
hid her toys under the couch. It was quite hard finding out what lay down below. So we built a robot that could be
remotely controlled by any Android device via Wifi, drove under
the couch, looked at the toys, and moved out what toys it found. It was
just under 6.5cm tall, streamed high-quality H264-encoded video in real time,
was controlled with a simple touch-based interface, and we even put
in a LED lamp so you could actually see something in dark places.
In the meantime, we have built numerous variants of the original robot and are researching on how to make them fully autonomous. Here is a short overview of the different robots, partly with blueprints, as well as the different remote controls.
| Type | Robot plattform | Camera | Main controller | Chassis | Power | Local DL? | Construction |
|---|
v1.0
 | Pololu Zumo (#1418) | 1x RPi Camera Rv1.3 (right) | 1x RPi 1B | Modified black chassis | 4x 1.5V 2900mAh Lithium batteries (non-rechargable) | No, <1fps | 2014
Blueprint |
v1.1
 | Pololu Zumo (#1418) | 1x RPi Camera Rv1.3 (centered) | 1x RPi 2B+ v1.2 | Modified transparent chassis | 4x 3.7V 14500 Lithium-Ion batteries | No, <1fps | 2016
Blueprint |
v1.2
 | Pololu Zumo (#1418) | 2x RPi Camera Rv2.1 (Stereo) | 2x RPi Zero W | 3D-printed chassis | 4x 3.7V 14500 Lithium-Ion batteries | No, <1fps | 2018 |
v1.21 (R2X)
 | Pololu Zumo (#1418) | 2x RPi Camera Rv2.1 (Stereo) | 2x RPi Zero W | Modular 3D-printed chassis | One of:- 4x 3.7V 14500 Lithium-Ion batteries
- 4x 1.5V Alkaline batteries
- 4x 1.2V NiMH batteries
- 4x 1.2V NiCd batteries
| No, <1fps | 2019
Blueprint |
v1.3 (K3D)
 | Pololu Zumo (#1418) | 1x RPi Camera Rv1.3 with Kúla3D Bebe Smartphone lens (Stereo) | 1x RPi 3B+ | Modified transparent chassis | 4x 3.7V 14500 Lithium-Ion batteries | Yes, 8fps | 2018
Blueprint |
v2.0
 | Dagu Robotics Wild Thumper 4WD (#RS10) | 2x RPi Camera Rv2.1 (Stereo) | 1x RPi Compute Module 1 on evalboard | None (open case) | 1x 7.2V 2S 5000mAh Lithium-Ion battery | No, <1fps | 2016 |
v2.1
 | Dagu Robotics Wild Thumper 4WD (#RS10) | 2x RPi Camera Rv2.1 (Stereo), Asus Xtion depth camera | 1x RPi Compute Module 1 on evalboard | None (open case) | 1x 7.2V 2S 5000mAh Lithium-Ion battery | No, <1fps | 2017 |
v2.2 (OUT)
| Dagu Robotics Wild Thumper 4WD (#RS10) | 2x RPi Camera Rv2.1 (Stereo), Asus Xtion depth camera | 1x RPi Compute Module 3 on evalboard | None (open case) | 1x 7.2V 2S 5000mAh Lithium-Ion battery | Yes, 8fps | 2018 |
The pretrained deep learning models require video output in uncompressed format and low resolution for efficiency reasons. However, most other remote controls require video output in compressed format (H2.64) and high resolution for quality reasons. Therefore, at present, the use of pretrained deep learning models can only be combined with the Bluetooth controller remote control.
If you find our research helpful and use it for your own research publications or technical reports, please cite one of our papers: