Multi Roomba Rover

A system for controlling create 2 compatible roombas through a webpage.

You can explore my basement through this project here: https://rover.otter.land

This guide is a work in progress, it will cover:

Building rovers
Installing roverd on a rover's raspberry pi
Setting up the server

Building a rover

You WILL need some common hobby electronics knowledge to build one of these, I will not be making a super detailed wiring or assembly guide, some of building your rover will be up to you, things such as a protective cage, camera and electronics mounting will not be covered in any great detail.

Parts per rover

Part	Notes
Create 2 compatible Roomba with the mini DIN port	Tested only with 600 series Roombas, your mileage may vary with newer models
4S li-ion -> 5v Voltage regulator	I use cheapo 12-24v USB car chargers, tear them apart, and solder wires onto them
7 pin mini DIN cable	Adafruit sells these labeled as a cable specifically for the iRobot Create 2
Logic level shifter	I use ones from adafruit, the Roomba is 5v logic and the pi is 3.3v logic
Google voice AIY hat v1	This serves three purposes: speaker, microphone, and a high current LED driver. None of these things are required to make a rover with a camera that can drive around, but it makes it much more fun.
Raspberry pi zero 2 W	This will run roverd to control the rover and manage some Roomba safety things locally. You can probably use any pi you want, but these are usually the cheapest.
A good wifi adapter	Has to work with Linux 6.12, ideally wifi 6 with MU-MIMO if you are running multiple rovers on one AP. The built in wifi on the pi zero 2 W is NOT good enough for this.
A USB hub hat (if using a pi zero)	If you are using a raspberry pi zero, you will want a USB hub hat for your wifi adapter, I would not recommend using an OTG adapter as it may not provide enough power.
----CAMERA STUFF----	----Below here is all camera related things that youll need----
A pi camera v2 (ov5647)	The video publisher in this project is only designed for the ov5647, though it would be totally possible to make your own publisher for other sensors.
Cheap 5v servo	Unless you have a VERY wide camera lens, you will want to have a servo plugged into the pi to be able to tilt the camera up and down.
LED for toggling night vision	I use white LEDs attached to one of the "driver" pins on the AIY hat to trick one of those generic pi camera LED floodlights into turning on / off on demand.
Pi zero camera cable	The pi zero has a smaller version of the camera ribbon connector, you will need the right cable for your camera

Physical assembly of the rover

This is going to be the very loose section of this guide, the way yout build your rover is up to you. I have mine built out with durable protective metal cages as they are open to the internet and people like breaking things. The electronics on top of the roomba can be as simple as a pi, level shifter, and a camera if you just want to run it around yourself, things like a speaker, microphone, servo, night vision LED, are all totally optional and can be disabled in the configuration on the raspberry pi.

These are the basics of how evertything is connected on my rovers, sort if in order from DIN cable to peripherals

7 pin mini DIN cable
1. Voltage regulator

Software on your rover

Raspberry pi OS installation:

Everything that runs on the pi is designed for debian Bookworm, because I could not get the AIY voice hat working in Trixie.

To install roverd on your pi:

Install Raspberry Pi OS (Legacy) Lite (exactly what its called in the imager) on your SD card
Boot the pi up, plug in your good wifi adapter, use nmtui to set it up
Install git, clone this repo into your home folder
Move into the repo folder, run the roverd installer using sudo pi/install_roverd.sh
Reboot your raspberry pi
Roverd, along with the audio and video publishers should now be running. Roverd should have created it's default config file at etc/roverd.yaml

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