IOT-Based Wi-Fi Surveillance Robot

with Real-Time Audio and Video

Streaming

Diksha Singh and Anil Nandgaonkar

Abstract In this paper, the wireless robot refers to the mini robot which live streams
the monochromatic video, takes and stores the images. The robot is being controlled
through a local Wi-Fi server by a compatible web page. The objective of the proposed
method is to implement the aforementioned technology pertaining to the mini robot,
which is capable of performing multiple tasks at an affordable cost. Arduino Uno R3-
Based Robot Control Board will be used to design the robot and. In this paper, we have
proposed a surveillance robot with the facility of real-time video streaming, audio
transfer, and ability to avoid obstacles in the process. The system will be designed as
such to stream the video live to the person monitoring the robot. We have used two
Android phones in the proposed method for the purpose of video streaming and audio
transfer. An entire new approach for controlling the robot through web page has been
used. We have used NodeMCU ESP Module, to incorporate wireless connectivity in
the proposed method.

Keywords Wi-Fi robot · NodeMCU · IPCAM app · L293D motor driver

1 Introduction

The term robot found its origin in a Czech word having the meaning slave. A robot
basically is an intelligent device designed to help humans in almost every relevant or
irrelevant field. The robot is capable of performing even a Herculean task. The robots
have no fixed shape, neither they have been specified for any particular field or for any
particular work. They can be made or converted into any form depending upon the
area of application. With the advancement of wireless communication technology

D. Singh (B) · A. Nandgaonkar

Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Technolgical
University, Lonere, India
e-mail: singhdeeksha1993@gmail.com
A. Nandgaonkar
e-mail: abnandgaonkar@yahoo.com

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 639

B. Iyer et al. (eds.), Computing, Communication and Signal Processing,
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 810,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1513-8_65
640 D. Singh and A. Nandgaonkar

in mobile robots, there is a great possibility, wherein we shall have a cell phone
controlling a robot maid, wheelchair, or an autonomous robot car. Surveillance is the
process of monitoring the particular location. This mostly happens in the areas where
continuous monitoring of the adversary territory is essential for the nation’s security.
It is not possible for human beings to go to any area they want. Human access is
restricted in certain blocked off place. Moreover, loss of life is also feared in the case
of getting caught in the adverse territory. However, with the recent advancement in
technology, this dangerous task of surveillance is performed by the robots instead of
human beings. With zero chance of human loss and with immense ease they provide,
several surveillance robots have been developed all around the world up till now.
In the proposed system, a new surveillance system for indoors is added as addi-
tional features to transmit voice from mobile surveillance is developed where it can
be transmitted wirelessly to robot and surveillance area to mobile phone. The robot
can be moved in all the four directions (left, right, front, and back) using its surveil-
lance area effectively. The mobile phone is used to give the commands to the robot
to move in all the four directions and receive the video. The communication between
the wireless surveillance robots and the mobile phone is done by the internet. Above
is the general block diagram of the surveillance robot. We are using 12v DC MOTOR
for driving the robot. The revolution per second (rpm) of DC Motor is 100. In DC
motor, we have more rpm but not exact angular movement like servo motor. For con-
trolling the motor, we are using L293D Servo Stepper DC Motor Shield to control
the movement of 12 V DC motor (Fig. 1).

2 Literature Review

Some of the recent works done in field of surveillance robotics is mentioned. Wren
et al. [1] have analyzed about real-time tracking of the human body. Shah et al. [2]
have discussed about an automated surveillance system, which is used in a range of
real-world places starting from security in the railway to the enforcement of the law.
Ramya et al. [3] have presented an embedded system for surveillance robot using
ZigBee and web server as well. The robot uses gas sensors for leakage of the gas
and for the detection of the intruders. The robot is controlled from a remote area by
the use of Zigbee technology. Borker et al. [4] have designed a surveillance robot
which uses an Android smartphone to control the robot. The robot consists of the
microcontroller, motor drivers, and motors. The robot is capable of surveillancing
along with transmission of the video. Kadiam et al. [5] have discussed about a
Smartphone-Controlled Two Axes Robot for Video which uses Wireless Internet and
Raspberry Pi Processor. The robot can be made to be moved in all the four directions
using an Android application. The video surveillance is done with the help of a
robotic vehicle which is interfaced to the USB along with arm 11 processor. Pramod
et al. [6] have presented a wireless robot systems using Arduino microcontroller. The
communication between the mobile and robot is through the ZigBee protocol which
restricts the coverage range of the robot. Irsahina et al. [7] have discussed about an
IOT-Based Wi-Fi Surveillance Robot … 641

Fig. 1 General block diagram of surveillance robot

Arduino-based robot which is designed using Bluetooth technology to control robot

and Wi-Fi network to transmit the video. Letian et al. [8] have discussed about a
robot which performs the image processing through the camera mounted on the top.
Sri et al. [9] have presented a surveillance robot for home security.

3 System Objective

The objective is to use robot for surveillance system over Wi-Fi network and to
transmit the audio and images as well in the process. The whole Transfer Process
will be performed Real Time. The surveillance robot will be controlled by the Android
smartphone using the internet. The robot can move in all the four directions using the
robot control web page available on the phone or the computer. The key motivation is
to provide a more cheap and effective surveillance system, which can be used in the
dangerous areas or the place where it is almost impossible for the human beings to
go. Since the NodeMCU Wi-Fi module and Android Mobile needs to be paired using
username and password, which is only known and predefined by the programmer in
the programming, hence this Wi-Fi robot control is much secured from intruders. It
has many functional features like
642 D. Singh and A. Nandgaonkar

3.1 This system gives four functional commands (Forward, Reverse, Turn left, and
Turn right) to control the Wi-Fi bot.
3.2 It will be able to record and transmit the live video. It will have the ability to
transmit the live audio and it can transfer the images as well
3.3 We will be using a software app called as IPCAMERA for the purpose of the
live transmission purpose. Upon entering the IP address in any favorite browser,
the page of the IPCAMERA opens up.
3.4 A secure Login System can also be created in the proposed system so that only
authorized person can access and control the movements of the robot. We have
not created database instead included the username and password in the code
itself.
3.5 We will be designing an HTML web page for controlling the movements of the
robot. The generated page will have five buttons namely forward, reverse, left,
right and stop.
In this proposed method, the role of IOT comes into the picture when I am able
to control my robot from anywhere. I am using HTML server page for controlling
the robot. Through port forwarding, I can control my robot from anywhere in the
world. However, in my proposed system, I am assigning a specific IP address so that
both the NodeMCU and the remote for controlling the robot should be on the same
network.

4 Hardware Overview

The proposed surveillance robot consists of the following components.

• L293D Motor Driver.
• NodeMCU ESP8266 Wi-Fi Module.
• DC Motors.
• Android Mobile containing IP Webcam.

4.1 L293D Motor Driver

L293D is a typical Motor driver or Motor Driver IC which allows DC motor to drive
on either direction. L293D is a 16-pin IC which can control a set of two DC motors
simultaneously in any direction. It means that you can control two DC motors with
a single L293D IC. The l293d can drive small and quiet big motors as well (Fig. 2).
IOT-Based Wi-Fi Surveillance Robot … 643

Fig. 2 L293D motor driver

Fig. 3 NodeMCU ESP8266 Wi-Fi module

4.2 NodeMCU

NodeMCU is an open source IoT platform. It includes firmware which runs on

the ESP8266 Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems, and hardware which is based on
the ESP-12 module. The NodeMCU ESP Wi-Fi 8266 module provides a minimum
of 512 Kb flash memory. It is low-cost, user-friendly plug-and-play module with
easy to configure and set up. It is widely used to develop hardware platform in IOT
application. This device is also called as mini Arduino. It has its unique IP address
(Fig. 3).

4.3 Android Phone Having IP Webcam Software

IP webcam turns your phone into a network camera with multiple viewing options.
It has the capacity to stream video inside Wi-Fi network without internet access.
It is a great app that uses your old phones camera to capture and send streaming
video directly to any web browser in the world. All you have to do is to download,
install it, and run the app with the phone with the camera facing the area you wish
644 D. Singh and A. Nandgaonkar

Fig. 4 IP webcam

Fig. 5 The generated IP address

to monitor. You will need to enter your Wi-Fi’s connection password and jot down
the IP address the app gives you for monitoring the video/audio and images. Then,
visit that IP address with the browser on any connected computer or smartphone to
view the action (Fig. 4).

5 Software Part

As far as the proposed system is concerned, the web page is generated by connecting
to the hotspot of the NodeMCU. There is no requirement of the internet for generating
the web page and that is the biggest advantage here. Upon uploading the program in
NodeMCU, a specific IP address will be generated (Fig. 5).
Upon entering the IP address in the browser, the below-given web page opens up.
IOT-Based Wi-Fi Surveillance Robot … 645

Fig. 6 Web page for controlling the robot

6 Results and Discussion

The resulting system after applying the proposed method will be able to live stream
the video, audio as well as image transfer facility will also be there. Since the usage
of hardware and wiring is minimum, possibility of breaking down of the robot is
reduced to minimum. As far as working principle of the robot is concerned, we will
be sending the respective commands, i.e., forward, backward stop, and start via the
web page of the host device be it PC or the Android mobile (web page is already
shown in Fig. 6). We will be keeping the baud rate of NodeMCU as 115200 bps.
Although in the proposed system, we have used NodeMCU only for controlling the
robot, but for further modifications, we can use Arduino Uno R3-based control board
also. Since NodeMCU has only one analog pin. The speed at which the motor will
move can be specified in the program and can be varied between 0 and 255. We have
proposed to control the robots direction by creating a GUI.

6.1 Video Streaming Section

We are proposing to use an old Android phone as camera in this system. For real-time
video, audio streaming section, I am using IP webcam. I have IP webcam installed
in the phone which I will be using as a camera. As soon as we start the IP webcam,
the IP address along with the port will not be generated. We can input the generated
646 D. Singh and A. Nandgaonkar

IP address in our favorite browser and see the real-time video streaming, audio
streaming, and image transfer page opening up.

7 Concluding Remarks

In the proposed method, we have tried to have a new approach for making the surveil-
lance robot. Robots movement is being controlled by the IP address and generated
web page for controlling the robot movements. Various technologies have emerged
so far in the field of surveillance. Infrared and Radio frequency has been used for the
surveillance and detection of the human body and intrusion detection. In the budding
years of robotics technologies such as Bluetooth and ZigBee had been used to con-
trol the robot from a distant or remote place. We observed that in earlier days that
the camera mounted on top of the robot for video processing and image processing
was fixed and could not be moved in any other direction. In certain robots, the night
vision camera has also been used for capturing of the image at night. PIR and IR
sensors are also deployed in the robots for moving object detection and for intrusion
detection. The robots can avoid the obstacles as well and can transmit the videos and
audio live. With the advancement of technology solution such as using the SD card
and rechargeable battery, has evolved leading to the increase in the efficiency of the
system. Surveillance robots using Wi-Fi technology instead of the regular Bluetooth
and ZigBee technology have arrived, capable of covering large distance at a lower
cost. Hand gesture-based surveillance robots have also been developed which are par-
ticularly useful for physically handicapped and elder people. This proposed system
has an entirely new approach and instead of the traditional Arduino Uno, NodeMCU
has been used. It acts as a mini Arduino and a Wi-Fi module as well. We will be
using L293D motor driver for the purpose of controlling the motors. NodeMCU
documentation will be used for the programming purpose. We will be using web
page for controlling the movements of the robot. The Real-Time Video, Audio, and
Image Transmission have been done through the IPCAM app installed in my Android
phone, which we will be used as a camera. We will be using android phones both
for the real-time transmission of the data and for controlling the movements of the
robot.

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