TL;DR

Replace a standard remote control for RC Boat by:

dedicated Wifi hotspot (access via phone/tablet/PC)
control through webpage with:
- RC controls buttons (forward, bacward, left, right)
- Gamepad websocket RC controls (for faster reaction)
- onboard video streaming

Based on:

Raspberry Pi web server, controlling onboard GPIO/Servo/Motor & Camera
onboard video streaming is accessible for anybody connected to open PiBoat wifi
NodeJS (0.12) with pi-blaster and websocket modules

This guide was written for beginers (in Raspberry, GPIO, Servo, ...), with sometimes detailed instructions. Expect about $50 cost and ~10 hours to install & configure it.

Result expected

Onboard Raspberry Pi

Get/Buy Raspberry Pi hardware
- Pi Zero W
- Pi Zero Camera (any model, I prefered a fisheye)
- Wifi dongle with long-range antenna (compatible with Pi)
- 4GB micro-SD card (with some USB device to plug on your desktop PC for configuration)
- soldering stuff, plugs, ...
- during installation phase, you will also need:
  - micro-USB power cable for Pi Zero
  - USB keyboard
  - mini-HDMI output
Install Raspberry basic software

The basic OS is just a raspbian-lite. So just follow standard Raspbian instructions here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/installation/installing-images/README.md using Raspbian-Lite image (https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspbian_lite_latest) and Etcher tool (https://etcher.io/).

In the end, you should have a functionnal SD-card with Raspbian-Lite installed on it.
Configure Raspberry software
1. Plug cables:
  - plug HDMI cable on Pi Zero and external TV/screen/...
  - plug keyboard on Pi Zero micro-USB port (through USB <-> micro-USB converter, closest to center of the board)
  - plug SD-card in its Pi Zero slot
  - plug micro-USB power cable on Pi Zero (plugged on connector farest to center of board) Now, Pi Zero will startup and display its initialization info on your TV/screen.
2. Configure OS: user, network & remote access
  1. login at prompt: login=pi password=raspberry
  2. change user password using raspi-config menu
  3. [change locale] using raspi-config menu
  4. add SSH server at startup: sudo systemctl enable ssh
  5. setup wifi to connect on your home network, for instance fill with your wifi network PSK: sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
```
...
auto wlan0
allow-hotplug wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-ssid "myssid"
wpa-psk "mypsk"
```
  1. check wifi access: sudo service networking restart and get the wifi IP: ifconfig wlan0 (usually 192.168.1.xxx)
  Now we will reboot to control the raspberry only with command line through SSH (you can use PuTTY client from your Windows computer): sudo halt, wait shutdown and then unplug HDMI, USB keyboard, micro-USB power supply. Then replug micro-USB power supply and camera only.
3. Install & configure web server
  1. login through SSH to your Pi Zero using PuTTY or any SSH client: ssh pi@192.168.1.xxx
  2. install NodeJS web server : sudo apt-get install nodejs npm
  3. install PiBoat web app: sudo apt-get install git; git clone https://github.com/yannrichet/PiBoat.git, and dependencies: npm install express http ip pi-blaster.js
  4. install Pi GPIO (pi-blaster.js) control lib: git clone https://github.com/sarfata/pi-blaster.git; sudo apt-get install autoconf; cd pi-blaster; ./autogen.sh; ./configure; make Ref: https://github.com/sarfata/pi-blaster
  5. install UV4L streaming service: sudo echo "deb http://www.linux-projects.org/listing/uv4l_repo/raspbian/ jessie main" >> /etc/apt/source.list; sudo apt-get install uv4l uv4l-raspicam uv4l-raspicam-extras uv4l-server uv4l-uvc uv4l-xscreen uv4l-mjpegstream uv4l-dummy uv4l-raspidisp Ref: https://www.linux-projects.org/uv4l/installation/
  6. setup UV4L: sudo vi /etc/uv4l/uv4l-raspicam.conf, and set display size: width = 320, height = 240, then add to startup: sudo systemctl enable uv4l_raspicam
  7. add PiBoat & pi-blaster at startup: sudo ln -s /home/pi/PiBoat/PiBoat.daemon.sh /etc/init.d/PiBoat; sudo systemctl enable PiBoat
  Now you can restart your Pi Zero: sudo reboot and then connect to web app through any web browser (on phone, tablet or PC) using http://192.168.1.xxx
4. Install and configure dedicated long-range wifi network
  
  Ref: https://frillip.com/using-your-raspberry-pi-3-as-a-wifi-access-point-with-hostapd/
  1. identify your wifi antenna: lsusb
  2. install Access Point softwares: sudo apt-get install hostapd dnsmasq and then
    
    (*) if using RealTek chip for your antenna, you will have problems with default hostap. Some turn-around is here: https://github.com/lostincynicism/hostapd-rtl8188
    - configure network: sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces
```
...
auto wlan1
allow-hotplug wlan1
iface wlan1 inet static
address 192.168.2.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.2.0
broadcast 192.168.2.255
hostapd /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
wireless-power off
```
    - configure access point: sudo vi /etc/hostapd/hostapd.conf
```
interface=wlan1
ssid=PiBoat
channel=1
macaddr_acl=0
auth_algs=1
ignore_broadcast_ssid=0
driver=rtl871xdrv # TO BE CHANGED IF NEEDED
ieee80211n=1
hw_mode=g
device_name=RTL8192CU
manufacturer=Realtek
```
    - configure dns/dhcp: sudo vi /etc/dnsmasq.conf
```
interface=wlan1
listen-address=192.168.2.1
bind-interfaces
server=192.168.2.1
domain-needed
bogus-priv
dhcp-range=192.168.2.10,192.168.2.20,12h 
```
Now you can stop your Pi Zero for next hardware step: soldering of servo & motor control...

Onboard Servo & Motor control

This is the hard part.

I choose to plug pins 22 and 27 from Pi Zero, and to power the Pi Zero from the output of the boat ESC (2 pins +5V and groun pin on row 2):

So, I had to add another small UBEC to power Pi Zero (see blue light), because my ESC secondary output was 6V...

Result:

In action:

Details of the Pi Zero pins:

Before powering the ESC, I strongly suggest that you check all the cables that connect every part. If you make some mistake (like I did :), you will burn your Pi Zero or servo.

Use it

Just plug the boat battery on the ESC
Turn the ESC on, so it powers the Pi Zero
Wait about 1 minute that the Pi Zero starts its web app and wifi hotspot
Connect your phone to "PiBoat" wifi hotspot
Open http://192.168.2.1 in your phone browser
Control it using left/right/top/bottom buttons and see onboard view in real-time (expect less than .5 seconds delay)

yannrichet / PiBoat

TL;DR

Result expected

Onboard Raspberry Pi

Onboard Servo & Motor control

Use it

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