Page 158 - The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots
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M re sophisticated telerobots have a video camera that sends pictures back to a human operator. The operator can see what the
ro bot sees and can send commands to control the robot.
T eleoperation does not work well if the human operator and the rem ote robot are separated by a very large distance, such as the
distance between Mars and the Earth. In this case, the video signals from the robot take a long time to reach the operator, and
the control signals from the operator take a long time to reach the robot. What the operator sees is really a second or two
behind what's actually happening, so it's very hard to control the robot with any precision.
Fortunately, you don't have to worry about this with Minerva. Because the remote and the robot communicate with IR light,
there must always be a line-of-sight between them. If you can control the robot, you can see it—there's no video connection to
add confusion.
Building Instructions
The controls for the remote are built on the bottom of the RCX. This was a conscious design decision—it orients the IR port of
the remote in the best place to broadcast commands to Minerva.
