Public projects Texas Ranger
Embedded systems · Robotics
Texas Ranger
A teleoperated ground robot with camera, telemetry, laser rangefinding and a dual firing turret. First robotics prize at Campus Party 2010.
Texas Ranger is a teleoperated ground vehicle built on a Linksys WRT54GL router, which provides the WiFi connectivity and the serial port from which everything else is controlled. An onboard camera gives a first-person view and lets you drive it remotely.
Two PIC16F876 microcontrollers handle the servos and telemetry, and a pair of Wii sensors compensate for tilt to stabilise the turret. It uses laser triangulation to measure distances and a steerable dual firing turret.
It is, in essence, the same concept as the teleoperated, armed ground robots deployed today on battlefields and in modern armies: remote control, camera, laser rangefinding and firing turrets.
It won first robotics prize at Campus Party 2010 and was the starting point of the whole TRRP platform. It appeared on Hackaday in 2011.
