As kids, nearly everyone has played with a battery-operated car controlled by a remote. Now, you can have the same with the Smart Video Car, but with vastly enhanced features. Additionally, you can control the Smart Video Car from your PC, because running the car is the versatile, single board computer, the Raspberry Pi, or RBPi.
You are in luck if you already have an RBPi B+ or the RBPi 2 with you, as the car comes as a complete learning kit, but without the RBPi. The car operates on 7-12V DC, supplied by two 18650 rechargeable lithium batteries. Since the RBPi cannot operate with such high voltages, a step-down DC-DC converter module is included. The module steps the battery voltage down to 3.3V, suitable for the RBPi to operate satisfactorily.
The kit contains all the multiple parts needed to put the car together. The driver module is based on the IC L298N, from ST Microelectronics, which works as a full-bridge motor controller. That means you can run the car backwards as well. To let the PC control the car wirelessly, the kit includes a USB WLAN stick or Wi-Fi Adapter. To know where your Smart Video Car is at any moment, you can check out the video it sends to your PC or smartphone through its webcam in real-time. The webcam is a part of the kit.
Using the PC, you have complete control of your Smart Video Car. Apart from forward or backward motion, you can turn the car left or right to avoid any obstacles in its path. An additional feature is you can control the camera independently to turn it vertically and horizontally. This way, you can capture the image from different directions.
SunFounder, the manufacturer, supplies all the necessary instructions, diagrams, descriptions and code in a complete manual along with their kit. A Tower Pro Micro Servo SG90 drives two front wheels of the car kit to make it turn left or right, while the other two rear wheels are active wheels. Two Gear Reducers drive the rear active wheels. A 12-bit PWM driver with 16 channels drives the L298N driver module for DC motor.
If you are just beginning to learn the RBPi code and application, this is a great kit to start. However, the kit also teaches you about basic components and modules in electronics. You can then use this knowledge for furthering your application and explore in different fields.
As SunFounder provides the entire code including all the necessary parts, anyone can assemble the kit referring only to the user guide. Building this Smart Video Car can be a fascinating experience and an enjoyable one. If you are running Linux on your PC, you can realize the car control very easily. You can even use Linux running on a virtual machine with equal ease.
The kit uses MJPG-streamer to capture images and transmit video in real-time. If you have a Firefox or Google Chrome browser running on your PC or smartphone, you can easily view the video on the browser and at the same time control the Smart Video Car.
