Controlled by the APP

The SunFounder controller is used to control Raspberry Pi/Pico based robots.

The APP integrates Button, Switch, Joystick, D-pad, Slider and Throttle Slider widgets; Digital Display, Ultrasonic Radar, Grayscale Detection and Speedometer input widgets.

There are 17 areas A-Q , where you can place different widgets to customize your own controller.

In addition, this application provides a live video streaming service.

Let’s customize a PiCar-X controller using this app.

How to do?

1. Install the sunfounder-controller module.

   The robot-hat, vilib, and picar-x modules need to be installed first, for details see: Install All the Modules.

   cd ~
   git clone https://github.com/sunfounder/sunfounder-controller.git
   cd ~/sunfounder-controller
   sudo python3 setup.py install
   

2. Run the code.

   cd ~/sunfounder-controller/examples
   sudo python3 picarx_control.py
   

3. Install SunFounder Controller from APP Store(iOS) or Google Play(Android).

4. Open and create a new controller.

   Create a new controller by clicking on the + sign in the SunFounder Controller APP.

   

   Give it a name and select the Controller type. There are preset controllers for some products in the Preset section, which you can use as needed. You can also customize your own controller by following the steps below.

   

5. Add different widgets to this controller.

   You can add different types and shapes of widgets to the A-Q 17 small areas inside this controller.

   

   In the A area, add an Speedometer widget to display the car’s speed.

   

   Note

   You can delete the widget you have selected by clicking on it, swiping left to find the Delete button, and clicking on it.

   

   Set the name, maximum and minimum values and units by clicking the Settings icon in the upper right corner.

   

   Set your current environment’s Line_Ref and Cliff_Ref for the Grayscale Detection widget in the D area.

   

   Lastly, add the remaining widgets and click the top right button to save.

   

6. Connect to PiCar-x.

   When you click the Connect button, it will automatically search for robots nearby. Its name is defined in picarx_control.py and it must be running at all times.

   

   Once you click on the product name, the message “Connected Successfully” will appear and the product name will appear in the upper right corner.

   

   Note

   • You need to make sure that your mobile device is connected to the same LAN as PiCar-X.

   • If it doesn’t search automatically, you can also manually enter the IP to connect.

   

7. Run this controller.

   Click the Run button to start the controller, you will see the footage of the car shooting, and now you can control your PiCar-X with these widgets.

   

   Here are the functions of the widgets.

   • A: Show the current speed of the car.

   • D: Show the data of the three sensors on the grayscale module, which have three states: black block: black line detected; white: white detected; exclamation point: cliff detected.

   • E: turn on the obstacle avoidance function.

   • I: turn on the line following function.

   • J: voice recognition, press and hold this widget to start speaking, and it will show the recognized voice when you release it. We have set forward, backard, left and right 4 commands in the code to control the car.

   • K: Control forward, backward, left, and right motions of the car.

   • Q: turn the head(Camera) up, down, left and right.

   • N: Turn on the color recognition function.

   • O: Turn on the face recognition function.

   • P: Turn on the object recognition function, it can recognize nearly 90 kinds of objects, for the list of models, please refer to: https://github.com/sunfounder/vilib/blob/master/workspace/coco_labels.txt.