CameraCarVR is four wheel vehicle with moveable camera controlled remotely by android application, gamepad and VR googles. Vehicle camera in realtime follows controller's head movement by mirroring current horizontal and vertical phone declination. Installed Raspberry Pi 3 computer is responsible for controlling vehicle and streaming camera preview directly to Android device through Wi-Fi connection. Camera preview is displayed as a stereoscopic image, so using VR goggle controller can easily step into virtual reality. In order to boost control precision, Android device is paired with classic gamepad controller by Bluetooth wireless technology.
Whole project can be divided into 3 parts:
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Camera movement server Simple UDP server implemented in C language, responsible for receiving data from android application in order to control camera position through GPIO pins. Communication with GPIO pins are served by WiringPi
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Vehicle movement server Simple TCP server implemented in C language, responsible for receiving data from android application in order to control electric motors speed (with help of L298N motor conroller) through GPIO pins. Communication with GPIO pins are served by WiringPi
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Camera stream server RPi_Cam_Web_Interface open-source application is responsible for streaming video from Raspberry camera. PiViewer application helps convert classic camera preview into stereoscopic one.
Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian OS and 3 server applications installed, works as a main vehicle controller. Four electric motors are controlled by two L298N modules. Camera motion is possible by two Hitec HS-81MG servos installed on vehicle. Power is provided by 3C 11,1V Li-Po accumulator.
To clone whole project at once use recursive mode:
git clone --recursive git://github.com/thirteendollars/CameraCarVR.git