Robotics and Home Automation Using WiFi Command Center

RootSaid has developed and published the first version of an All in One Android Application “RootSaid WiFi Command Center” that allows you to control your robot and your home appliances from anywhere with internet connectivity. You can connect your robot or home automation system to your network (WiFi or Wired), connect your Android device to internet or or your Local Area Network and send UDP Commands to your device.

RootSaid WiFi Command Center uses UDP (User Datagram Protocol) to communicate with the server (Robot or Home Automation System). In UDP, there is no acknowledgments packets involved which will speed up the communication process. So for real time applications like this, it is better to use UDP. The TCP version of this App is under development and will be available soon.

Working

The working of this app is very easy. You can build your own system or a little bit of tweaking on an existing system can make it work with this app. You can program it in such a way that it will execute a particular predefined function when it receives a particular command from the Android App.

Client Side

After opening the app, we should provide the IP address of the Server and the port it is listening to. Once they are entered, you can click on the “Link” button to Load them as the default destination IP and Port. You can check the connection by clicking on the “Send” button, which will send a test UDP packet tot eh server. Now you can navigate to “Robot Controller” tab for robot control and “Home automation” tab for home automation. The App sends different string values depending up on the button that is pressed.

Server Side

Meanwhile the server will be listening to a predefined port for incoming packets. The server can be anything that can be connected to a network; Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Node MCU are just a few of them. When it receives a packet, the string can be extracted and saved to a variable. This variable can then be used to execute a predifined function using a simple If condition or a switch case.[AdSense-B]For example, when you click press the forward button in your Android App, it will send a UDP packet with a string “forward” to the IP address of the server. When the server receives the packet, it will extract “forward” in a variable and use this to execute a function that will make the robot move forward.

Download

This android Application has been published in the play store and can be downloaded by clicking the below link.

[AdSense-A]Download

Instructions

Connect your phone to the network.
Start RootSaid WiFi Command Center in your android device.
Enter your server’s IP Address and the Port it is listening to. Click on the Link button to load them as default.
Now Test your connection by clicking on the Send button.
Now navigate to the tab you want and start controlling.