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Vigibot, the ultimate web remote controller!

We are building a robot maker community around vigibot.com allowing you to control anything you want over the internet with low latency!

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Vigibot.com is a completely free website with no advertising that you can use to control robots over the internet. To make a robot controlled with vigibot you just need a raspberry pi and a pi cam and use the open-source client we provided: https://github.com/vigibot/vigiclient . You can make your completely custom robot or make the open-source robot called Minus : a 4WD robot with a pan and tilt head and a two-axis gripper, that you can easily replicate to show how the website is powerful. (All 3d printed part files are available on our GitHub : https://github.com/vigibot/vigicad , we shared .stl file as well as openscad files).

The important thing with Vigibot is that it is free (ruled by a non profit organisation), and you can make your own completely custom robot and control it over the internet.

You don't need "dedicated hardware" other than a raspberry pi and a pi camera...

Anyone can add his robot on vigibot and configure the interface to add inputs and output displays to adjust this " internet remote controller"  according your robot needs. 
With the opensource client provide, you can already  connect a lot of things directly on you Raspberry Pi GPIO to control your robot like :

  • Control On / Off Gpio ( for leds, lazers, relays , active buzzer ) 
  • Drive servomotors ( 50hz pwm 500 to 2500 uS adjustable on the interface ) , 
  • Drive standard dc motor drivers like L298, L293, L9110, TB6612FNG  ( and more ... )
  • Drive I2C boards using PCA9685 to  control more, servo, dc motors driver, or simple IO.
  • Make your robot speak by just adding a speaker on the raspberry ( 3.5mm plug,  usb speaker, or  HDMI connector for monitor with integrated speaker ) ,
  • Connect a usb mic to hear whats going around your robot, 
  • Read some I2C fuel gauge sensors ( CW2015,  max17043 , and BQ27441 )
  • Read UART GPS data ( GPS configured : bauds 115200 refresh 10 Hz NMEA ) 
  • Use standard USB 4G stick to provide internet to the robot where you don't have wifi but 4G is working for outdoor session
  • Connect an Arduino or any other µc through UART to add all the features you can imagine that are not available yet directly on the raspberry pi.  Serial communication protocole example is shared here : https://www.robot-maker.com/forum/topic/12961-vigibot-pi-arduino-serial-communication-example/
More than just being able to control things and adapt the remote controller to your needs, you can share your robot to the internet with a full control of permissions.
You can set your robot private for your own use only, only share your robot to your friends, by adding them on the white liste, share to the whole community ( All the registered member - people you black listed ) , or anyone . And decide what can exactly do people in each of theses groups.  like : 
  • Have access to the robot ( basic thing, to be able to do something on the robot ) 
  • Set servo peoples can play with ( Allow to use the head of the robot but not the gripper ? no problems ;) ), you can even choose to restrict amplitude ...
  • Set what switches people can press ( allow people to play with leds but not a laser if you want ;) ) 
  • Allow the people to drive the robot and choose to limite the max speed to others if you want and keep full speed for you... 
  • Allow or not, others to make your robot talk only ... 
  • Allow people to hear the sound arround the robot on the installed mic or not...
  • Set hours of permissions for each group, when they can access the robot or not ... 

There is a tons of feature, all is not fully documented yet but you can join the community on discord to learn more about whant you can do and how you can do it : https://discord.gg/3KrMHdp . We are a nice community and we provide a lot off support if needed.

  • 1 × Raspberry Pi ( A+ 3B, 3B+ or 4 ... ) ( Raspberry pi zero works but not as good ... )
  • 1 × Raspberry Pi Camera ( Best is to choose a wide angle camera ... If possible one with auto amovible IR cut to have great color during day time and night vision ... )
  • 1 × SD card with open source vigibot client installed (Check the vigibot github or https://www.robot-maker.com/forum/topic/12794-how-to-add-my-raspberry-pi-robot-on-vigibot-to-control-my-robot-over-the-internet/ )
  • 1 × Your robot base including batteries motor drivers and a proper 5V power supply for th Pi (You can hack any electric toy by adding some basicelectronics, like dc motor driver and a 5V dc dc convertor for the Pi or you can make our robot Minus 3D files are provided on github)

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  • 1
    How to add my robot on vigibot.com
    • Create your Vigibot account on www.vigibot.com  
    • Click on "Management" and then "Add a Robot". Choose your robot name and robot password and submit. Keep them in mind you will need them in a few steps.
    • Download the provided image vigimage.zip
    • Unzip vigimage.zip and write the image vigimage.img on your micro SD card. (On Windows, you can use " HDD Raw Copy Tool ") 
    • Then open the /boot partition in the sd card.  
    • Modify  "wpa_supplicant.conf" file according to your wifi network configuration. (Change the "Demo" SSID and the "Default" password to match your own Wi-Fi network) 
    • Modify "robot.json" according to the robot name and robot password you previously choose. ( Change the "Demo" login and the "Default" password)
    • Install the sd card in your Raspberry pi with the camera installed and then power it up (Due to compilation process, the first boot take few minutes before robot to appear on the website: do not power off the Raspberry Pi during this time )   
    • Take a look at the server www.vigibot.com. Your robot should appear first in the robot list under "My robots". Voilà! 

      By default, you are the only one that can see your robot. Configure the permissions if you want to change it but keep in mind that doing so you are streaming live video as people do it on twitch and youtube live. You are responsible for the content you stream.
  • 2
    Connect hardware on Your Raspberry Pi!

    By default,

    • The first pair of servomotors (camera pan and tilt servo) need to be connected to GPIO 5 and 6 of the raspberry pi.
    • The second pair of servomotors (gripper) should be connected to GPIO 7 and 8.
    • 360° endless servomotors to move the robot should be connected to GPIO 26 and 27.
    • LEDs, lasers, buzzer, relay and other stuff like that should be connected to GPIO 16 to 23.
    • For Arduino users, you can also choose to connect an Arduino or another microcontroller to the Rasperry pi using UART GPIO 14 and 15. A simple arduino code for vigibot serial communication is provided here.

      You can now play with your robot and share access on it to your friend if you want! :)

      If needed, you can customize your configuration => All these default configuration can be changed to match with your own robot set up. You can use as many servomotors as you want, and if not using 360° endless servomotors  (or a board converting standard DC servo to 360° endless servomotors ), you can set it up to drive dc motors with L298n board, L9110 board or even PCA9865 board...

    If you need more information you can check : => The vigibot forum where you can ask your question either in english or in french. => The vigibot github where you can find source files and more details if you want install all by yourself instead of using the provided image. => If we are online you can directly use the vigibot chat => Or the vigibot discord

    You can also follow us on twitter and facebook =) 

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