Motors Control with Gesture

We are using node-red to create this application.

Node-red is a flow-based programming tool that help us creating application in a very fast way. If a pre-build node is note avaiable we can create custom functions using Javascript and NodeJS.

Through this application we can control the motors with gesture and proximity.

Prepare the breadboard

Prepare a breadboard to connect the PWM output of the Kitra520 connector to a transistor that will drive the motor. Check the connector schematic HERE

Update Linux Kernel

To make audio work on Kitra520 we need to install the latest Linux kernel: You can do it by following this step by step tutorial: LINK

Install tools

To connect the board to the network follow the getting started guide: LINK. We need to install node-red, mplayer and espeak.

$ dnf update
$ dnf install node
$ dnf install npm
$ npm cache clean -f #to download last nodejs version
$ npm install -g n #to download last nodejs version
$ n stable #to download last nodejs version
$ reboot #required for upgrade
$ npm install -g node-red
$ dnf install espeak

If you have troubles running 'dnf update' run the following:

$ sed -i 's|archive\.fedoraproject\.org\/pub|archives\.fedoraproject\.org\/pub\/archive|g' /etc/yum.repos.d/*

And retry.

Run Node-Red and install the application

Run

 node-red &

On your PC open a browser and open a page on this address:

<MY_IP_ADDRESS>:1880

Now you should design a node-red flow that controls the PWM through gestures.

You can start with this example: test_gestures.json and changing the handling of the events according to your motor needs.

To set a PWM you can use the node do_pwm_init.