Web-controlled robotic manipulator using Java and client-server architecture

This paper describes the work-in-progress of a client-server system to control a moving robot over the World Wide Web. Robotic manipulators are interfaced to the computer using simple microprocessor circuits. The engineering objective is to perform robust real time manual control over the Internet connection characterized by varying bandwidth and latency. A Web server is used to provide the client application to the operator. The client uses a custom TCP/IP protocol to connect to the server, which provides an interface to the specific robotic manipulators. Sensors and a video camera provide the feedback to the client. Since the decision was made that Java2 would be the only target implementation language both client and server are platform independent. The current system prototype "Bradley WebBot" utilizes an Intel based computer system with a Personal Web Server controlling remote controlled car models. It can be inspected by visiting the Web site at http://sant.bradley.edu/~olekmali/projects/tb-front/ http://sant.bradley.edu//spl sim/olekmali/projects/tb-front/.