Development and testing is now complete for the Relay Server software addition, which allows remote operation of Oculus Prime mobile robots connected to the internet via mobile 3G/4G/LTE networks. It also allows operation behind NAT firewalls, or on any network where there is no ability to configure and forward ports necessary for general internet remote access.

All that is required is to run an instance of the Oculusprime Server application on a device connected to an unconstrained network. This will act as the ‘relay’ server, which you then configure the robot to connect to. When you want to remotely connect to the robot, you connect to the relay server instead, which relays commands and video from the robot seamlessly. The server can be running on any Linux system, including a Raspberry Pi, or within a virtual Linux environment on a Windows or OS X PC.

Now you can equip Oculus Prime SLAM Navigator or Pi Explorer with a smartphone or mobile wifi hotspot, and see how far you get driving around outside, free from the limited range of a wifi network (in fair weather, of course!)

This addition to the Oculusprime Server application has been on the to-do list for a long time, but has been put off because, well, it required a lot of boring network programming. (There always seemed to be something more exciting to work on, like testing out the newly-opened-sourced Google Cartographer ROS package.)

Summary of enhancements to Oculusprime Server version 0.8:

• Relay server
• Expanded network menu
• Wifi Access Point Manager upgraded to version 0.914
• Red5 streaming media server upgraded to version 1.07
• Apache Tomcat web server upgraded to version 8.0.33
• Updated power PCB firmware (auto power-off at 30%, reduce false positive errors)
• Force disable navigation before auto-dock
• Added calibraterotation command
• Added no-battery-connected indicator to web browser UI
• Minor bug fixes, optimisations

For software update instructions, see here.
For more details on running the relay server, see here.
Java 8 is now recommended, which has to be installed manually, see here for upgrade instructions.