Building iPhone and iPad Electronic Projects

Chapter 8. Hacking a Radio-Controlled Truck with Bluetooth Low Energy and Arduino

About This Chapter

Prerequisites

Read Chapter 6 first to get a basic understanding of Bluetooth low energy technology.

Equipment

You will need an iPhone 4S or later or an iPod 5th Gen or later running iOS 5 or later, an Arduino Uno microcontroller, a RedBearLab BLE Shield, a hackable radio-controlled (RC) truck, and various small electrical parts to build this project. See Figure 8-1 for detailed parts lists.

Software

You will need a copy of techBASIC or techBASIC Sampler, a copy of the Arduino software for programming the Arduino microcontroller, and a copy of Firmata, an Arduino program that works well for our purposes. The Arduino software and Firmata are free downloads.

What You Will Learn

This project shows how to connect an iPhone or iPad to an Arduino microcontroller. The Arduino has limitless possibilities. Here you will see how to connect it to an H-Bridge to control motors, allowing an iPhone to steer a radio-controlled truck. This is a basic staple of robotics—all of the techniques are used in almost every mobile robot that uses DC motors for propulsion.

Controlling a Truck with BLE

This is a fairly challenging yet very rewarding project. There’s something for everyone—cool control software for the discerning programmer, instructions on communicating with the Arduino microcontroller using Bluetooth low energy for the budding roboticist, a close look at using H-bridges to control motors for robotics, ...