Capturing the spied image-video data using a flexi-controlled spy-robot

Wireless operated spy-robots can be immensely useful if they can be controlled remotely over a larger operating ranges. Availability of multiple modalities for their wireless control operation can further enhance their capabilities and the range of applications. In this paper we develop a prototype spy-robot that can be controlled remotely, using multiple modalities. The spy-robot can be controlled using a smart phone based DTMF, remote control application, voice commands and tilt-gesture control application. DTMF uses the alpha-numeric keypad of the mobile phone. The remote control application is developed for the Android platform based smart phone. The voice commands use online conversion from speech to text form. The tilt-gestures controls use accelerometer of the smart phone. The control commands to the robot can be transmitted in three ways, using Bluetooth network, over Wi-Fi or using DTMF based telephone calls. The spy-robot can perform forward/backward and turning left/right movements. An on-board spy camera can also be tilted up/down or left/right, in the steps of 30 in each direction. The images or videos captured by the camera are streamed back live over the Wi-Fi network Performance evaluation is carried to measure various operational limits, with encouraging results. The proposed flexi-controlled spy-robot can be used for range of applications including surveillance, monitoring, tracking and control.