Raspberry Pi Smart Robot
(Still In Development)
I present my most ambitious engineering project yet: A remote-controlled ‘smart robot’ with OpenCV video processing, and real-time video transmission using WebRTC.
This project combines my standing knowledge in software, with the electronics and electrical engineering concepts I learned while obtaining my Computer Engineering degree at Villanova University. Since I love robots, and have been excited to start working in the field for years now, I decided to get started with my own at home. This page will demonstrate the designing, planning, problems I ran into, and final implementation of this project.
Concept Art (Generated by DALL·E 3)
This is the anticipated final design of my smart robot. It will implement a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B, a 5A battery pack, a 4-wheel drive chassis, a Raspberry Pi-compatible camera with mounting, motor drivers, ultrasonic sensors, and a breadboard to hold additional electronic components.
Parts Gathering
In this video, you’ll see the parts I got for the robot chassis, with the motors included. These are only a few parts out of many that I have included for this robotics project. Many of my purchases were made from Amazon, and I verified that each part went together by using data sheets, and reviews from more experienced electronic tinkerers.
The “Brains” of my robot
This is the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B with 4GB of RAM. I had the option between choosing a Pi and an Arduino, but went with a Pi due to the computing demands of my project. My robot will be expected to run OpenCV, process video feed, establish a web server for WebRTC (for real-time robot control and video viewing), and perhaps some sort of facial recognition.
