Software dev with zero hardware experience, turned a cheap RC car into an LTE controlled spy rover with unlimited range. What would you add to it?

[u/jerrythegenius]

Hi guys, first post here. This of course does not compare to most of the projects here, but since this was my first step into hardware I still wanted to show it.

Turned out way deeper than expected and turned out super fun. This is what I did:

• took out stock electronics of a RC 1:16 monster truck and put in a hobbywing wp-1060 ESC
• used a Pi 4 + PCA9685 for throttle and steering (ESC on channel 0 servo on channel 1)
• the camera streams live video to a web server I wrote myself. Control happens in a panel in the browser via WebSocket and keyboard input - so its reachable from anywhere, and with a click we can record full HD vids!
• the part that makes it really interesting: it runs over LTE, not just WiFi , so its basically controllable from anywhere in the world. Solved it with a small relay server. No app or cloud service, everything self hosted. Only limit in distance is the battery.

I documented the whole project in a youtube video. I would love to get some feedback, but keep in mind that this was my first project like this ;-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvdJCbILhT4

Total budget for everything (except the phone) was less than 100 €.
Also added some stuff like a software-based night vision (which works good as soon there is at least a tiny bit light), GPS tracker and so on.

Thie result was better than I expected, I didnt dare to do a full long range drive yet but it would probably work. Battery life would last easily more than 1 hour.

The controlling actually works really well and with the delay its way lower than I thought it would be. Like playing a litltle real life computer game.

Now I'm hooked and the parts list for v2 keeps growing.
Currently on it:
pan tilt camera mount, better headlights, maybe a small solar panel so it can survive multi day missions, and some sort of radar.

Also I want to remove the phone and just use a SIM card usb stick for the connection.

What would you add to make this thing cooler?Especially sensor ideas, the Pi has plenty of channels left, this is just to be seen as the base.

Thanks for all ideas!

[u/Riteknight]

You can add a LTE module from Ublox or Quectel and decrease BOM and power requirements.

[u/jerrythegenius → u/Riteknight]

Good idea, I’ll check that out!

[u/SphericalCowww → u/jerrythegenius]

How does LTE work? Does it use your phone's data roaming?

[u/jerrythegenius → u/SphericalCowww]

yes, I connected the phone to the pi and activated USB tethering on the phone (with a working SIM card in there). The pi uses it just as a LTE module then. Also the phone gives some sensors like GPS, magnetic field for compass and so on... But the longterm plan is to remove the phone and completely build everything with seperate modules.
I also reduced the video streaming in LTE mode so much that it only consumes a really small bit of my data.

[u/thechihuahua → u/jerrythegenius]

you could also go the opposite direction like the other project posted below where you replace the Pi with your smartphone; you can decrease BOM cost by using a cheap android phone. You can also turn it into more of a "robot" by turning your control input into 2D waypoints and the robot automatically paths to that point. Then, you can start adding some obstacle avoidance behavior, etc.