Hi,
I'm making a radio controlled robotic arm using servos and micro servos connected using small lengths of Perspex. I tried controlling the servos using an arduino UNO but now am looking for a device that will work wirelessly and preferably not through my laptop. As a cheap option it has been suggested to me that I simply connect my arduino to a receiver that will comunicate with a RC transmitter.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
Georgie
Where do the commands come from, ultimately? Is the Arduino initiating them?
There are many different ways to do wireless Arduino, which have various pluses and minuses.
One way is bluetooth, which is a low power radio control. Many smart phones, laptops, etc. have a bluetooth radio. On Android phones, you can download several apps that let you set up a terminal interface or just use it to define a few buttons to send specific text (from what I've read, on Apple phones, you have to use devices registered with Apple, which costs quite a bit of $$$). You can get a bluetooth shield (Radio Shack sells the seeed version) or a separate card that you hook up to two pins. Here is a recent discussion about bluetooth: http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,145374.0.html
You can also connect it with infrared controllers, similar to what many people use for TVs. I posted some links to look at for infrared here: Infrared with Arduino Uno - #2 by MichaelMeissner - Sensors - Arduino Forum.
Note, for controlling things like servos, I don't think the library is the way to go, since it uses blocking reads to read in the pulses from the IR press. I just ordered the following from Sparkfun to give me access to 2 buttons without doing a blocking operation: Programmable IR Receiver - SIS-2 - SEN-08753 - SparkFun Electronics
You could use a wifi shield on the Arduino. I don't have experience with it, but I've read the comments that it uses a lot of pins, and takes up most of your memory on the Arduino.
There are other radio based technologies that I am less familar with. One is Radio Block, that I just got two boards from, but I haven't used yet: Dewisport - Situs Judi Live Casino, Slot Games, IDN Live Terpercaya Di Indonesia
Another that I looked at some time ago, but didn't get it was Open Source RF: 無難に見つけておきたい転職求人情報
As a cheap option it has been suggested to me that I simply connect my arduino to a receiver that will comunicate with a RC transmitter.
Skip the arduino and build the arm setup just using the RC tx/rx.