The TNS Video Rover
The TNS Video Rover remote-controlled car.
What does it do ?
The video rover allows web users to explore our offices by driving a remote controlled car and monitoring a live, wireless video feed from a camera placed on top of the vehicle.
How does it work ?
The TNS Video Rover itself was built entirely from off-the-shelf parts.
The
VuNet (the TNS group's gigabit ATM research network) was used as the backbone for capturing video and contrlling the car.
The followng sections briefly describe each of the components of the system.
Software Control
The vsrover application shown above displays the live video and allows the user to control speed and direction of the car using the buttons on the lower left portion of the window. The application was created using the VuSystem programming environemnt.
Video Transmission 
A 900 Mhz wireless video link, made by Recoton, was used to transmit video from the car a basestation. The only modification to the wireless system was substituion of a battery pack for the power adapter on the mobile transmitter. At the basestation the video signal was captured by a Vidboard and transmitted over the VuNet to a workstation where the raw video is made available to the application program.
The Vehicle
We modified the Tamiya SuperHornet radio-controlled vehicle, to support
a small video camera a video transmitter and three 9 volt batteries. The
original prototype used a Sony HandyCam and the front suspension of the car
was modified to support the extra weight. Since then, the camera has been replace with a lightweight CCD camera from Sun Microsystems.
Remote Control
The remote controller for the car was modified to accept TTL signals for the control of steering and speed. It was then interfaced to a DEC alpha workstation using a Vupboard interface which connect our workstations with the
VuNet.
Demonstrations of the TNS Video Rover
A
video of the Video Rover in operation is available for your
viewing pleasure.
Unfortunately the car is not being
maintained in a drivable state at this time, perhaps one day the rover will rise to ride again.
