New Android/Arduino App – ipgamepad
Posted: May 4, 2011 Filed under: Projects 6 Comments
Just wanted to post a little update here about the latest project I’ve been working on called ipgamepad. If you’re looking for a video, don’t worry. We’ll be documenting this fully in the next episode.
In a nutshell, ipgamepad is a simple app that runs on any Android device and acts as a virtual gamepad controller that transmits the control data wirelessly. Right now it’s extremely simplistic in nature (just 2 analog sticks), but I have plans to build out a full controller with buttons and switches. My motivation behind building this is for controlling Arduino/Netduino robots over WiFi.
If you’re like me, you probably have a spare wireless router lying around the house and there’s a good chance you’ve got an Android device accessible to you. With those 2 components you’re literally a microcontroller + ethernet interface away from a wireless control system. On the Google Code page, I’ve also provided an Arduino sketch that you can run if you have an Ethernet shield. You can directly control servos or speed controllers from the Arduino, providing a complete robot control system.
If you’re an Android developer and are interested in helping with the project, let me know! I definitely could use the help developing the app and there are a lot of things to improve/implement before I consider the app anywhere near polished.
The video episode will be following soon with a full explanation and robot demo. Enjoy the code until then!
The Tech Junkies 
This is a great post. Thank you and Google for chance to read it.
Great project,.. 😀 this is what I’m looking for…
I have a plan to control my quadcopter using xbee+arduino and android device as a remote control
sorry one more,… my quadcopter using HK KK board. any advice pls…
Hi wira,
That sounds awesome! The one issue you’ll run into with xbee is that you’ve only got wifi and bluetooth on your android phone. You may be able to build some sort of serial to xbee bridge that you connect to the Android device, but it would be trickier.
Eric
just wondering if you are going to support this so it will work with the new update i have been looking every where on ho to get this working anf there really is not alot of info on it. It seems even eith one guy tring to get it fixed it still wont work for me. The sck will load just fine i set up the port and ip adress but i dont get any thing over the serial out or and thing at all…. no errors at all
Hi Jon,
What new update are you talking about? I haven’t had a chance to play around with the code recently, but I can take a look if something is no longer compatible with the latest Android/Arduino versions.
Eric