This is my personal project to develop a robot based in 2 components: A Lego Mindstorms NXT robots which use Java LeJOS and an Android mobile phone to control the whole system.

In this stage of the project, I have updated the set of classes to exchange data between Android-NXT with LeJOS project and I have reused a old thread that I had to manage the bluetooth connection in NXT side. I have divided the project in 2 parts:

• Soul Part [Android]
• Body Part [Lego Mindstorms NXT + LeJOS project]

Note: To make the connection from Android to NXT I used in my first tests an example from Shawn Brown that he tested with Andrid 1.5 and 1.6 when Android OS doesn’t have Bluetooth support and I tested with a Nexus One model (Many thanks Google by the lab developed in Madrid in previous months. They gave me a unit FREE!!!)

In the past, I have tried to manage all systems in the NXT side, but the CPU included in the NXT brick is small in compare to a Nexus One’s model (1Ghz) so the NXT brick manages sensors and actuators and the android phone manages the behaviors.

I did a preliminar video with low quality about the project. The video show a bluetooth connection and how to use a User Interface in Android to manage the physical movements in the NXT robot.

NXT Side [Body]
I suppose that some readers know my work with LeJOS project and NXT Sensors/Actuators. Due to my experience with NXT Systems, I use NXT platform to develop the “Body”. The Body is a classical platfrom with 2 NXT Servos with 2 US Sensors and 1 Compass. With these equipment, it is possible to use a classical navigation system using Odometry calculus and allow the whole project the capabilities to make movements and detect obstables in a basic way.

This year I am teaching a course about robotics in Alcalá de Henares, Spain and currently we are testing Navigation Systems with NXT and Java LeJOS project.

http://www.roboticaenlaescuela.es/blog/2010/03/25/comportamientos-basicos-evita-obstaculos/

With this ideas, I have developed a system which listen a bluetooth connection for an external device (Other NXT brick, A mobile phone, A PC/Laptop or a Android device) which send commands to execute.

A NXT brick is perfect to manage one active bluetooth connection with other subsystems running in “Real time” so If I want to incorporate more subsystems to the project, I have decided to use another CPU in the project, in this case using an Android Mobile Phone.

Previous projects:

RC Car 1 [2008]
http://www.juanantonio.info/jab_cms.php?id=228
RC Car 2 [2009]
http://www.juanantonio.info/jab_cms.php?id=239

Android Side [Soul]
I like so much Android because add new features to NXT brick for example:

1. Quality Camera with the possibility to make image processing with OpenCV using Java
2. Web Services to exchange data with external services in Internet
3. Google Maps
4. Massive Storage to save information about the processes
5. Accelerometer

For the moment, I know how to exchange data from the Bluetooth Thread to the user interface in Android. I hope to improve the solution little by little and I wait your help in the process

Cheers.