Sample code to control a BB-8 Droid from a Smartphone

This is a sample project to control a BB-8 Droid based on the works of shamimshossain using MQTT, the IBM internet of Things Foundation, and the sphero.js. This project also uses the MQTT wrapper from the parrot-sample.

You can control movement of the droid using a Node-RED flow. A sample flow has been included below.

Running The Sample

Hardware

You will require the following devices for this demo.

1. A BB-8 Droid
2. A laptop which supports BLE. The BB-8 will be connected to the laptop via BLE. BB-8 controller code will run on the laptop. I used a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014).

The laptop will be working as the IoT gateway to connect to BB-8 and receiving the MQTT commands. Here the gateway subscribes to iot-2/cmd/run/fmt/json topic.

Getting The Code

$ git clone https://github.com/niklaushirt/bb8_demo.git

Pre-requisite tasks

Create and configure the IOT Foundation

Create an instance of Internet of Things Foundation from Bluemix catalog and name it IOT Foundation for example.

From IoTF Dashboard, perform the following tasks.

1. Click the Devices tab and click Add Device.
2. Create a new Device Type called "sphero".
3. In the Device ID field enter a unique ID for your drone (for example "my_little_sphero".
4. Click Continue

At the completion of these steps you will see information about the device you registered. Make note of the auth-token field as you will need that to run the sample.

The IoTF service can not retrieve these authentication details for you later. So make sure to store these in a secure place

Next get API keys for your application.

1. Click on the API Keys tab
2. Click the New API Key link
3. You will see a Key and Auth Token displayed.

Take note of the Key and the Auth Token as you will need these to run the sample.

The IoTF service can not retrieve these authentication details for you later. So make sure to store these in a secure place

Update the configuration file

In the root of the repository you cloned you will find a file named sphero-config.properties. Following is the content of the properties file.

#Device ID you use when you register with the IoT foundation
deviceid=yourdroneid

#For controller (device)
authtoken=yourauthtoken
#For the app (publisher)
apikey=yourapikey
apitoken=yourapitoken

Replace the values of the deviceid, authtoken, apikey, and apitoken with the values you got when creating the device and app in the IoT Dashboard.

Following is a screenshot of IoTF dashboard.

Modify the BLE ID

The BB-8 uses a Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) interface, also known as "Bluetooth Smart" or "Bluetooth 4.0/4.1". You must have a hardware adapter that supports the Bluetooth 4.x+ standard to connect your computer to your BB-8.

Run the following command:

$ npm install sphero noble

To connect to your BB-8, you need to determine its UUID. Once you have Noble installed, you can call advertisement-discovery.js to determine the device's UUID:

$ node ./node_modules/noble/examples/advertisement-discovery.js
peripheral discovered (944f561f8cf441f3b5405ed48f5c63cf with address <unknown, unknown>, connectable true, RSSI -73:
    hello my local name is:
        BB-131D
    can I interest you in any of the following advertised services:
        []
    here is my manufacturer data:
        "3330"
    my TX power level is:
        -18

Look for a local name bit BB-XAZ. In the above output, the device UUID is 944f561f8cf441f3b5405ed48f5c63cf.

Open the spheroDemo.js file and replace the BLE key you got in the previous step.

Set up the bridging application to run from your laptop

1. Open a terminal window and make sure you are in the bb8-bluemix directory. Otherwise cd bb8-bluemix to the root of the repository.

2. Run npm install to install all the dependencies.

3. Place your BB-8 near your BLE compatible laptop.

4. Now start up the controller code by running node spheroDemo.js

5. Your BB-8 droid will be connected to IoTF via BLE compatible laptop and change color to green. You will see an output similar to following from the terminal.

**** Start debug info *****
Connected to BB-8
BB-8 is changing color to green to indicate that it is connected
**** End debug info *****
r6co3p.messaging.internetofthings.ibmcloud.com
Output of ping command
{ sop1: 255,
  sop2: 255,
  mrsp: 0,
  seq: 0,
  dlen: 1,
  data: <Buffer >,
  checksum: 254 }
End of ping data
MQTT client connected to IBM IoT Cloud.
Connected Sphero ID: my_little_sphero
subscribed to iot-2/cmd/run/fmt/json

5. You are now ready to create an Node-RED Starter app from Bluemix catalog.

Node-RED

1. Create an Node-RED Starter app from Bluemix catalog.
2. Bind the IoT Foundation service created before to this app.
3. Open Node Red
4. Copy the Node-RED flow from NodeRed/NORDERED.json and import into Node-RED.

Once you have imported the flow you will need to double click either on the IBM IoT input or output node to open the configuration properties and update the API Key and API Token from above.

Then replace the device ID with the device ID you registered your drone with in Bluemix. For example, replace my_little_sphero with your deviceid.

Mobile App

Make sure you have installed the CloudFoundry command line.

Make sure the the IOT Foundation name in the manifest.yml and app.js file (line 21) correspond to the name you have given your IOT service created earlier!!!

Open a Teminal and cd into the Mobile_Web_App folder and type:

1. cf api https://api.ng.bluemix.net
2. cf login -u yourBluemixID -o yourBluemixID -s dev
3. cf push -n myAppName

Your command line should look similar to this:

Check that both devices show up in your IOT Foundation Dashboard

##Play... Now go to the app's URL with your phone (for example http://myAppName.mybluemix.net/iot-phone/) enter a device name (I use demo otherwise you'll have to update it in the NodeRed FROM iPhone Node ) and a password (remember this, as you won't be able to change it afterwards!). Be aware that both are case sensitive!

Now you should can activate the debug nodes in NodeRed and you should get some data streaming through your flow when you move the phone. And if all is well setup your bb8 should start rolling...

Happy playing...

##Troubleshooting... If you get

FAILED
The route myAppName is already in use.

Solution

Change the name ('myAppName') in the cf push command

If you get

FAILED
Could not find service IOT Foundation to bind to myAppName

Solution

Check the name of your IOT Foundation Service in the in the manifest.yml and app.js.