I am working on an arduino robot that will have both autonomous mode and remote controlled mode. The autonomous mode is easy for me, but i'm not sure how to set up a remote control system. Are there any easy and preferable cheap (under 15 -20 dollars) way to remotely control arduino?
Thanks,
Jack
That depends entirely on where and over what distance you want to control it over, do you want telemetry info from the bot and so on.
If the where is inside, and how far is pretty much within line of sight, by far the cheapest I can think of is an old tv remote and an ir receiver module such as, RadioShack.com Official Site - America's Technology Store.
Although cheap it won't give you anything like joystick control as the remote only sends one command at a time and ambient lighting conditions will affect the range. Other than that, do you have any rc toys lying around that need breaking?
I've harvested the radio modules from broken toys and used the remote for other things, so that is a possibility as well.
I would prefer to be able to use it outdoors and use a joystick. Any other ways?
Sounds like you want radio, sorry no real experience there other than salvaging parts and probing pins.
The ardupirates quad-copter guys use RF. You might take a look at their code. A compatible hardware store RF receiver and transmitter (with two joysticks and a bunch of switches) cost my robotics team < $100.
What about a wireless PS2 controller like here:http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1278605751?
Would it work fine?