I'm on the final stretch for making the plans for my robot/RC rover.
So the last part I need to work on is coming up with a way to control the rover from a long distance ( 50-200 miles ). Besides controlling it, I also need to be able to stream back video, audio, and other data back from the robot to my pc which means it needs to stream at least 9-15 kb/s.
*The reason I need such a long range is to use it to roam the large woodlands I live by which are quite large and not-so-friendly for both people and RC vehicles.
Good luck. Line of sight is 16 miles. The curvature of the earth comes into play. At the ranges you're talking about you need repeaters, satellites, towers, etc.
You could possibly go with shortwave communications but then you're talking very limited bandwidth. If you had clear line of sight you can go a lot further (as in, the guy flying an RC aircraft down from near-space) but in woodlands you're going to be severely limited by ground clutter.
Look up ethernet radios to start. Visit http://www.wlanparts.com/ to see what's involved in putting together a system like that.
If you did you would find that the restrictions on it prevent you from doing what you want. You can only have bandwidth to send video at 470MHz and over. However you won't get 200 miles coverage except under extraordinary propagation conditions.
You may be overstating the requirements. Do you really need a wireless connection over 200 miles range? I can't see why you would need that unless your woodlands were 200 miles across, which seems unlikely.
Depending what your true requirements are, it may be that you can get away with a wireless connection with a much shorter range to a base station which has internet or phone connectivity (wired/wireless). It would be much easier to achieve this from a fixed base station than from a mobile device because you can use directional antenna to increase the wireless range, even if you can't manage to set up a wired connection. Depending on the size of antenna you're able to use at a base station and the area you need to cover, you may need multiple base stations. However you achieve it, once you have got a path back to a land line or cell tower, the rest is easy.
The reason I need such a long range is to use it to roam the large woodlands I live by which are quite large and not-so-friendly for both people and RC vehicles.
If you can acquire permission to install semi-permanent repeaters high in trees (solar power), you could conceivably get away with a mesh-network of repeaters using much lower power.
Well I guess I have some kind of alternative which is to have some application on my pc plan a predefined route/destination using and A-D solver ( azimuth-distance ), issue the route to the arduino, and then have the arduino navigate the route by "dead measuring" where it's going using a compass, timer, and accelerometer as well as giving it some AI to avoid obstacles like trees, pits, and boulders ( probably going to need an RGB-D camera for that ).
and then have the arduino navigate the route by "dead measuring" where it's going using a compass, timer, and accelerometer
GPS might be a better solution.
as well as giving it some AI to avoid obstacles like trees, pits, and boulders ( probably going to need an RGB-D camera for that ).
That could be difficult unless there is a road or trail... And, it could require LOTS of processing power and there might be obstacles that simply cannot be crossed (dense brush, mud, a river, a ravine, etc.). You send your robot on a 200 mile journey, and you may never see it again!
Have you heard of the [u]DARPA Challenge[/u]? I have a [u]DVD[/u] of the original off-road DARPA challenge. It's interesting, but it might give you an idea of how difficult it is to make an autonomous robot/vehicle. (Of course there have been advances and Google now has autonomous vehicles that can integrate with traffic.)
The reason I need such a long range is to use it to roam the large woodlands I live by which are quite large and not-so-friendly for both people and RC vehicles.
Well I guess I have some kind of alternative which is to have some application on my pc plan a predefined route/destination using and A-D solver ( azimuth-distance ), issue the route to the arduino, and then have the arduino navigate the route by "dead measuring" where it's going using a compass, timer, and accelerometer as well as giving it some AI to avoid obstacles like trees, pits, and boulders ( probably going to need an RGB-D camera for that )
In a "not so friendly" world, there would be some who would view this vehicle as a roving parts supply! I hope that you have control & possession long enough to receive a return on the investment.
You need GPS and two way communication.
If the vehicle breaks down, you have to know the last position to be able to get it back.
If someone calls you on the phone that it is going in a wrong direction, you have to be able to shut it down.
If the woodlands are not so friendly for an RC rover, why use one ?
Would a drone with a videolink be better ?
Perhaps you can make a van as a base station. Drive the van to a location, and guide the drone over that area.
Why do you want to roam the woodlands ?
For overview photos, perhaps you can buy sattelite photos. Or for animals, intruders, hunters ?
You could place a motion triggered photocamera in an animal trail.
