Plausibility of wirelessly controlled RC car project.

[kaseftamjid]

Hey.

I had many projects before that failed partly because I didn't delve deep enough to know that certain elements of the project didn't work well together, and only found it after I spend a bunch of time making other peripherals for the project itself, So, This time, I'm gonna confirm the plausibility first...

I'm currently making a custom RC car from scratch, with a custom made servo, chassis, and everything. The main motor driver is a TA8428K ( datasheet attached ) Which basically can take 2 PWM inputs for Clockwise, Counterclockwise, brake, and stop function.

My plan for the servo, aka the front wheel rotating mechanism, is to map the physically allowed range of the servo to a potentiometer and use it to move the front wheel in somewhat fine increments, 2 other pots control the PWM outputs to the motor driver.

Now comes the controller part, which gives me the heebie-jeebies...

Basically, I have 3 PWM values I need to send to the car from the controller. I'm thinking of using 2 esp 01 modules connected over my house wifi network for the communication and 2 atmega328p barebones to receive the 3 analog inputs and another to output the 3 pwm signals on the car side.

Something like this..

Now the problems, after that long intro...

1. I can't figure out how I can calculate the latency between these two systems. I don't need any exact values, But I just need to know that it can actually be enjoyable to drive around without much lag.

2. Am I overthinking things? I chose the esp 01 modules because I have them on hand and the atmega328 because that's one I know I can surely find in my local shop and is dirt cheap, plus it's powerful enough to be used in various other projects I can muster.

3. Is this even doable, Or am i overlooking something very obvious that makes this thing very impractical?

TA8428K_datasheet_en_20100223.pdf (465 KB)

[groundFungus]

There is another way for ESP8266s to communicate that does not use the local network and may have less latency. It is called ESP NOW. Robin2 has a tutorial to get you started.

I suggest that you use software serial to talk with the ESP modules. That saves the hardware (USB) serial for program upload, debugging and monitoring program flow and variable values.

Potentiometers would interface through the analog inputs, not digital. Rotary encoders would interface through digital pins. If you use encoders you could use development boards like the NodeMCU and eliminate the Unos.