RITA — Remote Interface for Total Autonomy

Overview

The whole fleet, in your hand

Robots

Ten on her screen

Every robot as a round avatar with a chatroom dot: green online, red not. ARIA shows her state, battery and network (RITA doesn’t fly her), and DREAM is the tenth.

Fleet

What they say

Tap a robot: her or his mode, whether they're moving, their music and distances, straight from RIFT's relay.

A button for everything

Music, lights, UV, photos, stop: green buttons go at once. Moving ones are amber and ask first.

Drive

One second at a time

After “Let RITA move NORA?” each tap is a 1 s timed move, with a drive pad for robots that drive.

Safe

The robots keep their stops

Walls, tilt and NORA’s lock still hold, and RIFT never passes on anything that unlocks a robot.

WiFi

She hosts when she has to

Her rung on the fleet’s ladder is above NORA: she joins RIFT, DREAM, NINA, TINA or a controller, and with none of them up she hosts “RITA” herself, so the robots join her out in the field. A higher network back: she hands over.

Stats

The fleet’s sensors

Temperature, humidity, distance, battery and WiFi signal for every robot in one table, from each one’s own status. Tap one for everything he or she reports, and a QR code to their own site.

Cameras

See what they see

KIDA-00’s camera (with a slider for its servo), KIDA-01’s two, and DREAM’s, with their detections drawn on, beside a small pad so you can drive while you watch.

DREAM

A small mirror of her

With an SD card RITA plays the clip DREAM is showing, from the same frame, and DREAM’s voice on her speaker. Without one, DREAM’s avatar and what she’s doing.

Web

Her own page

rita.local shows what’s on her screen as it happens, her network and the fleet, with an Open site button for every robot. WEB on her screen shows its QR code.

Light

Her LED, in colour

A slow breath for the network (green RIFT, amber another, blue hosting, red none), red blinking when a robot doesn’t answer, and DREAM’s mood on her screen.

Talk

Brainfuck, out loud

TALK on HOME: she joins the fleet’s conversations, each phrase beeped on her speaker in her own voice, whenever she isn’t playing DREAM’s. Tap it off and she keeps quiet.

Power

Made for a power bank

Her screen dims after two minutes without a touch (not while you watch a camera or DREAM), and the first touch only wakes it, so nothing gets pressed by accident.

Hardware

What she's built from

01 ESP32-3248S035R “Cheap Yellow Display” (3.5″, 480×320)
02 ST7796 screen and XPT2046 resistive touch (on the board)
03 RGB LED (on the board)
04 A USB cable
05 A USB power bank: what she runs on in your hand
06 A speaker or headphone jack on the speaker connector (optional)

Part	Pins
Screen (HSPI)	SCLK 14, MOSI 13, MISO 12, DC 2, CS 15, backlight 27
Touch (same bus)	CS 33, IRQ 36
RGB LED (active low)	R 4, G 16, B 17
microSD (its own bus)	SCK 18, MISO 19, MOSI 23, CS 5
Speaker connector	26 (DAC)

Stay close

The robots keep near you

RITA sends the fleet's ESP-NOW beacon once she's on a fleet network. Press STAY on NORA's or WHIP's page and they keep near her, in your hand, stopping about a metre away. Her signal shows how far, not which way, so they try a direction, keep going if it gets stronger and turn if it doesn't. On the way they go round things: they slow down near something and sidestep round it toward open space, still heading for her, and back out of corners. It's been tested in simulation (round a wall in 47 of 50 pretend rooms, no bumps), not on the floor yet.

Quick start

Get her talking to the fleet

Copy scripts/esp32/secrets.example.h to secrets.h and put in the fleet’s WiFi passwords.
Run flash.bat, or flash scripts/esp32/esp32.ino as an ESP32 Dev Module with the Huge APP (3MB No OTA) partition scheme (libraries: LovyanGFX, ArduinoJson).
On the first boot, tap each corner as it lights up. Hold the screen while she starts to calibrate again.
She finds the fleet by herself. Tap a robot.
New firmware goes over the cable: one big app slot leaves room for Bluetooth LE, not for updates over WiFi.