Roomba Hacking: Gamepad Control

The last few weeks we have been working on a bunch of hacks for Roombas. Until we will be able to provide detailed information and tutorials online, we would like to entertain you with some multi-media content. Check out the movies and pictures showing our Roomba Discovery being controlled by a Logitech Dual Action USB gamepad. The Roomba has been largely gutted from its vacuum cleaning parts and beefed up with a ASUS WL-500G Deluxe wireless router running OpenWRT. The router is entirely powered by the Roomba’s own battery pack and thus allows for complete cordless operation. As a wireless client the router can receive command over the building’s wireless network and can redirect those commands to Roomba’s serial interface via USB-to-serial converter. Additionally there is a webcam connected to the router’s second USB port providing a video stream to an arbitrary host. Finally we have written software which reads out the gamepad’s states on the client computer and sends them to a C program running on the Roomba. This program translates the states into commands recognized by Roomba and allows us to control the Roomba remotely over the Internet.

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