According to programmer Pierre Guedon, a smartphone is a great basis for a robot, since it comes equipped with computing power plus a full complement of high-tech sensors: a three-axis accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, a microphone, and a camera. As a bonus, it also provides a large tactile screen, sound production, and a vibration motor, he adds.

Since earlier this year, Guedon has been working to create a Windows Phone 7.5 ("Mango")-based robot -- and has been chronicling his work on his WPBots.com blog. On Nov. 21, he announced the end result: SmartBot Mini (pictured below).

The SmartBot Mini
(Click to enlarge)

Guedon says the robot is designed to accept even the biggest Windows Phones available, such as HTC's HD7 or Titan. It is equipped with two caterpillar tracks, each driven by its own DC motor, and includes a "homemade" analog circuit board.

According to Guedon, "Mango" provides developers with access to the Windows Phone camera API, which is extensively relied on here to create a "strong interacting robot." The possible robot control strategies are said to include:

• face recognition
• face tracking
• object tracking
• light tracking
• optical character recognition
• tag readering (data matrix, barcode, etc.)
• edge detection for maze resolver
• line follower

An SDK for the SmartBot Mini allows controlling the robot with seven different actions (including moving forward, back, left, and right, as well as "singing"), while an image processing library allows for "blob detection" and many other functions, Guedon says. A sample application (below) shown on the WPBots.com blog causes the robot to locate a red balloon and rotate in order to always be in front of it.


A sample tracking application for the SmartBot Mini
(Click to enlarge)
Interfacing to a smartphone

Apparently devising an interface between the smartphone and the SmartPhone Mini's controller board was the main developmental challenge. That's because like most others, Windows Phone handsets do not include serial ports.

To get around this problem for an earlier robot, Guedon created a cable that used a mixture of software and electronics to convert signals sent from a Windows Phone's headphone jack into TTL-level RS232 signals. This cable allows a phone to connect to an Ardunio or a board running Microsoft's .NET Micro Framework.

The cost-reduced SmartBot Mini again uses a phone-based "Audio Serial Port"application (below) written by Guedon. But in this case, control is achieved via analog audio signals and a custom motor controller, the latter capable of variable speeds.

  The Audio Serial Port app
(Click either to enlarge)

The Mini keeps cost down by relying on only the sensors and computing intelligence that are already resident in the smartphone. In the future, the robot will gain additional actuators -- a gripper, for instance -- that extend its capabilities, Guedon adds.

The SmartBot Mini in action
Source: WPBots.com
(click to play)

Further information

According to Guedon, the SmartBot Mini will be offered for sale, though no pricing or availability date has yet been determined. The robot can work with Android smartphones too, and "I will add iOS and BlackBerry OS compatibility later," he says.

Meanwhile, for details of a $78 robot for Android phones that seems very similar in both appearance and concept, see LinuxForDevices.com's Nov. 23 article on the "Romo."

Jonathan Angel can be reached at jonathan.angel@ziffdavisenterprise.com and followed at www.twitter.com/gadgetsense.

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