A repository for the RC Car project.

Project Summary:

This project uses a Raspberry Pi to control the RC Car over Wi-Fi. The car has a camera module that is used to stream video to a browser on a computer. The RC car is intended to be controlled using a computer with a keyboard. The following keys can be pressed to control the car:

• "W" -> forward
• "S" -> reverse
• "D" -> hard right
• "A" -> hard left
• "W+D" -> soft right
• "W+A" -> soft left
• no keys pressed -> stop
• "+" -> increase speed
• "-" -> decrease speed

Setup on Raspberry Pi:

1. Follow the instructions on this website to flash the Lite version of Raspbian (headless setup): https://desertbot.io/blog/headless-raspberry-pi-4-ssh-wifi-setup . Don't bother installing Bonjour as instructed.

2. Install motion for video streaming: https://raspberry-valley.azurewebsites.net/Streaming-Video-with-Motion/ . Note that the motion.conf file may not appear exactly the same and variables may have different names. Here is a list of all the changes I made to the motion.conf file (in nano editor, use CNTL+W and ALT+W for keyword search):

   • changed daemon from off to on
   • changed stream_localhost from on to off (used to be called webcam_localhost)
   • stream_port left at 8081 (change if you want)
   • changed webcontrol_localhost from on to off
   • webcontrol_port left at 8080 (used to be called control_port, change if you want)
   • changed framerate to 30
   • changed stream_maxrate to 30
   • changed rotate from 0 to 180 (depending on how the camera module is mounted)
   • changed quality from 75 to 25
   • changed stream_quality from 50 to 25

3. To test out motion video streaming, go to a browser such as Google Chrome, and type: "raspberrypi.8081". If that doesn't work, try manually writing out the IP address of the Raspberry Pi instead of using the hostname. Use the port that is specified in motion.conf. Motion should automatically start, but if it doesn't, try running "sudo service motion start". Once you set the state to start, the Pi should remember to start the motion service every time you boot afterwards.

4. Enable remote GPIO:

   • sudo raspi-config -> "Interfacing Options" -> Enable remote GPIO
   • reboot to make sure changes take effect

5. Clone the RC Car project to the Raspberry Pi:

   • sudo apt-get install git
   • make sure you are in the home directory
   • git clone https://github.com/RyanFenn/RC-Car.git

6. Install npm packages:

   • sudo apt-get install pigio (this is the C library and it is a prerequisite for Node.js module)
   • sudo apt-get install npm
   • cd RC-Car
   • npm install
     • this installs dependencies defined in package.json (express, socket.io, pigio)

7. Run server.js on start-up:

   1. Create a service file at this location: /etc/systemd/system/rc-car.service

   2. Paste this block of text into the service file:

      [Unit]
      Description=RC Car service
      After=network.target
      
      [Service]
      ExecStart=sudo /usr/bin/node /home/pi/RC-Car/server.js
      WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/RC-Car
      StandardOutput=inherit
      StandardError=inherit
      Restart=always
      User=pi
      Environment=NODE_ENV=production PORT=8089
      
      [Install]
      WantedBy=multi-user.target
      

   3. sudo systemctl enable rc-car.service

   4. sudo systemctl start rc-car.service

   5. Make sure it is running properly: sudo systemctl status rc-car.service

   6. If the service file is modified -> sudo systemctl daemon-reload and then sudo systemctl restart rc-car.service

   7. To find the Process ID: ps -ef | grep server.js

   (reference material for step 7: https://www.axllent.org/docs/view/nodejs-service-with-systemd/)

8. Go to a browser such as Google Chrome and type in "raspberrypi:8089" to connect to the server (use IP address if hostname doesn't work).