“For this project, we will be developing a 4-Wheeled Robot using ESP8266 which will be controlled over a Wi-Fi Network. The robot can be controlled from an ordinary internet browser, using a HTML designed interface or also from an android mobile application. ESP8266 chip is a powerful & cheap microcontroller, which is not only easy to use but also comes with onboard Wi-Fi connectivity. This is just the perfect chip to control robots remotely from your computer or mobile device.
To incorporate this chip into our project we can use a variety of development boards based on this microcontroller.
1. Adafruit Feather Huzzah - It is made by Adafruit and has easily available instructions and support. It has li-po battery charger on the board itself, so it will come really handy in portable projects.
2. NodeMCU ESP8266 - The board is open source and has excellent documentation so it will be very easy to get started.
3. Sparkfun ESP8266 - It is like the Huzzah with the addition of a power switch and an external antenna for a longer Wi-Fi range.
4. Wemos D1 Mini - It is the smallest of all the boards but this doesn’t have any effect on the performance.
For my project, I am using Wemos D1 Mini to make a Wi-Fi Controlled 4-Wheeled Robot. But you can use any ESP8266 development board and use the same Arduino code without any changes required. I have designed a PCB for this project but you can use a dot pcb board to implement the circuit or even design your own pcb.
And we will be using 4WD Robotic Chassis Kit as shown in the image above as it is ideal for DIY and is the most economical robot car kit with simple mechanical structure.
Features of this kit:-1. Comes with four separate BO plastic motors with gearbox it’s good for maneuverability.
2. Large, sturdy acrylic chassis allows greats expandability for you to DIY.
3. Four wheel drive smart car chassis kit. Very easy to install, just add micro-controller (such as Arduino), and sensor modules to build a fully autonomous robot”