AndroRC: An Android remote control car unit for search missions

The AndroRC is a remote control car (RC) unit controlled by a smartphone running on an Android application. The car is meant to be used in search missions in the occurrence of natural disasters. It is developed to autonomously avoid obstacles that are not visible to the user driver. The RC unit is developed based on a Tamiya 70112 Buggy car chassis set with an extra servo motor added to provide the left and right directions. The RC is equipped with an ultrasonic distance sensor, a camera, a Bluetooth receiver, a Wi-Fi transmitter, two 9-V batteries and two Arduino microcontroller boards (UNO and MEGA). The Arduino MEGA controls the propulsion and direction, while the UNO processes the information received from the distance sensor to stop the RC at a pre-defined distance. The Android application uses the embedded orientation sensor on the smartphone to determine the four directions (forward, backward, left and right) intended by the user; hence, rotating the smartphone to different directions results in to the corresponding propulsion of the RC unit. The control commands are transmitted to the RC unit through the Bluetooth communication. The Android application also receives (via Wi-Fi) and displays the information from the camera in real-time. The AndroRC was characterized and examined on bench-top settings.