Hi All,

I have made a robot that is controlled with my Asus tablet (TF300T). I have written the control app using MIT app inventor which communicates over bluetooth. What id like to do is mount some kind of video camera (either a stock wireless web cam, or a specialist camera from somewhere like sparkfun) onto the robot and then modify the control app to display the video feed. I understand that I will have to ditch app inventor to do this and write using the SDK directly and that is fine, but I would like to know if the concept is possible and if so could you kindly point me to some resources that document this ?

All help appreciated

I don't know about your particular SDK, but the camera should have documentation. Many cameras you can connect to the network and then use http://camera.ip to see the image, or you could get a camera that has bluetooth. You might want a camera with its own battery unless the robot can supply power.

It really depends on the camera you use. I've only worked with DVR systems, and those tend to be more or less a PITA. If I were looking at doing this my first instinct would be to get a Raspberry Pi and wire it up to broadcast the camera feed in whichever protocol is most convenient.

Thanks for the answers guys

Khatharr- This is something that came to mind, however, would it not be better if the IP webcam signals were picked up and processed by the tablet itself. This has 3 main advantages 1: the tablet has more processing power than the pi. 2: I would have to buy a PI specifically for this, I already have the tablet 3: I would have to power the pi as well as the webcam, the robot now has more weight/power consumption. What do you think ?

Essentially all I want is a simplified version of an app like IP Webcam (http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam&hl=en) embedded into my own android program

I found this thread on Stackexchange

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/712998/opencv-with-network-cameras.

Which covers using OpenCV with an IP Webcam, So I shall be giveing that a go.

Thanks again for your input guys.