Make Wi-Fi Controlled Robotic Camera Car With Gripper

Hello readers, in this Instructables i will show you how to make an ESP32cam-powered robotic car with gripper that is controlled via smartphone with Wi-Fi technology

Since from a younger age i was fond of remote controlled vehicles and at that point of time the availability of such robot would come at a hefty price and the features were limited

Now with the availability of programmable boards the technology has become inexpensive and most importantly i would correct it as affordable

The robot car that you will be building today can also be termed as surveillance robot car since it can be controlled from a distance and has all the features to glide in almost any terrain

Other best part is you don't need to install separate application to control this instead simply enter the IP address on the browser and you are good to go

How cool is it to stream a live video from a car that you just built at your home? and also to mention you also have a gripper that can hold the objects on the go and also release it all the control of your fingertips on your phone

well now you know what we are talking about, this robot can be controlled with any phone or laptop device and the best part is it comes with on board LED light that is very much helpful in the night times

Like my other projects here also i will be giving you a detailed instructions, a working video of this project at the end along with build instructions

Esp32 cam module thai is used here

FTDI module for programming

Battery case with switch

L298N Motor driver

BO Motor with wheels

DC motor and wheel x 2

Jumper Cables

Power rail of breadboard

Hot glue

Arduino IDE

Flat head screwdrivers

On/Off Switch

18650 battery

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There is a different method to upload codes to the ESP32-CAM board and i will tell you how

Method one is using a onboard top attachment for ESP32-CAM and it is slightly hard compared to FTDI module so here i will be telling you the method of program uploading to board using the FTDI module

The first step here is to build a circuit as in the first circuit diagram, you will only need ftdi module and few jumper cables and a USB cable

Gnd to Gnd, Vcc to 5v

Rx from Ftdi to Vtx and Tx from ftdi to Vrx, Most important here is you have to connect a loop using jumper cables between Io0 and Gnd pins and after program is uploaded to board you can remove this cable

After these connections are made connect your board to computer and open Arduino IDE, Copy and paste the below code to IDE

Open the board manager and select AI Thinker module and select the proper port number and click on the upload button, after this is done we need to test the circuit

Open wifi settings on your phone and you should be able to see wifi as network name, connect to this network and now for the IP address all you have to do is check for connected devices and make a note of IP

Enter the Ip address on your browser and now your esp32cam will be on, juts try to turn on the flash and now everything is good to go

we will now make second circuit and i will make it quite simple

Connect the l298n motor driver module to esp32cam module as follows

Ena to I02 and Enb to the same pin

Now the In1,In2,In3 and In4 is connected to I012,I013,U0t AND U0r pins respectively

For power connections the positive of battery is connected to 12v pin of driver, gnd to gnd and now the 5v and gnd pins from driver are connected to Vin and gnd pins

The Gripper servo gnd is connected to common gnd of board and battery whereas positive is connect to independent 3.7v battery source and is controlled via separate switch

Signal pin of servo is connected to I015 pin of the cam board and now we have the circuit ready

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I have designed and cut the wheel base by myself on a piece of cardboard, You may now ask why do it in a piece of cardboard?

I was supposed to do this on MDF wooden board but i had no tools to cut and customise the board so using cardboard was the best option for me

Instead of 4 wheels i will be only using 3 wheels and there is also a specific reason for this move, lets say if you are making it 4 wheel for this you will need 4 motor and 4 wheels

More motor means more power and in other way round it requires more power source and thereby increase the material cost but reduces the overall backup time

Since the components are light in weight compared to the power to weight ratio the 2 bo motor will do the job and there is no need of extra motor

Si for the rear wheel i will using combined wheel connected to shaft of dc motor and this part will be connected to the middle part of cardboard frame as shown in the step above

Also to balance the counterweight of the motor i will use weight of battery that will be placed on the opposite part and i will show that in upcoming steps

Use hot glue to attach to the frame and later connect the wheels to the shaft and now we have the frame ready and we can head over to adding electronics

I will make space for the wires that is coming below the motors from below, now at the center add a piece of double sided adhesive tape and place the motor driver on top of this

With the help of screw driver fix the wires to the driver slots

Organize all the jumper wires and make necessary adjustments, now with the help of 3d printed frame i will place the esp32cam module at the front of the frame

I will use the power rails of the breadboard to make the gnd connection among all components easier and i will place on the frame as shown

If you don't want to 3 print you can simply add the camera module using hot glue but if you are wiling to cover it with a 3d printed frame i have given the stl files below

Follow the placement as shown in the steps and if necessary add some height to your camera, make sure to double check the camera alignment

This gripper was made from 3d printed parts and there are 3 parts associated here

First one is the main frame itself that holds the servo and the slider and the other one is the slider that has a slot where the gears will slide in them

The driving part is the gear of the servo, you can get all the parts for 3d printing here, i have reused this from my previous project

Parts are same but the mechanism is different, here i have connected the servo to the frame with glue and the whole setup is connected to frame like shown in the step

There is need of some minor adjustment with the gripper other end, I have used a small plastic frame in the other end and you can vary the size of other end considering how big of the thing you want this gripper to hold

I wanted the gripper to work to its full potential keeping its strength in the mind i have kept in the appropriate place

Now the ultimate question after building that most of us have to themselves! How do i use this

Well when I'm here to explain why you need to scratch your head, Turn on the second circuit first(servo gripper) and then the ain circuit

You will now see the wifi connection appearing on your wifi in your phone, connect to the network and open any browser and paste the IP address and click on refresh

Camera will be active in no time and you will see live stream of video on your device, Try to move the robot front and back first and then to the left and right

When you move the slider on screen the gripper should hold and release and now this is a perfect setup for the robot and you can now test

I have tried in different terrains and the result were more than my expectations, the stream quality is simply the best

Since we are using 2 different battery sources the run time for this robot is very long and you can enjoy your surveillance robot even during the night with its in built led light

This was everything you need to know about building of this robot car, any questions if you have ask in the comments but before that make sure to have a look at this working video below

If you feel you have missed anything then this video is for you, i have given a detailed video tutorial here and also testing this project on different terrian will be a bliss for your eyes!

You can implement this robot in many ways say for example build some of this robots and organise a remote searching task among your friends that will be the best served purpose of your build!

This was all for this project, let me know how this came out or did you add any amazing feature to this

Well thanks for showing interest and have a happy build.