A smartphone-controlled autonomous robot

Abstract

We present a low cost autonomous robot, which is controlled by a standard android smartphone. We describe the complete mechanic and electronic setup. Stereo vision is derived from the smartphone camera using a mirror system. We further describe a dynamical system controller, which allows the robot to navigate around a room towards a target while avoiding obstacles whose position are estimated by the visual system. For heavier computations, a laptop can be used via wireless LAN. Altogether, this design is useful for a variety of mobile robot experiments.