6 Creating robot web apps

This chapter will teach you how to build a web application to control your robot. The application will work equally well on desktop computers and mobile phones. The full range of robot movements will be available through the application, along with commands that can be used to measure the network performance of the application, end to end. As we build the application, you will learn useful techniques for measuring the application performance, as well as detecting and fixing certain types of web request failures.

Web applications provide a powerful platform to build a mechanism for controlling the robot by a human operator. Web apps are accessible both from the desktop application and mobile devices. They also work consistently across the main desktop operating systems (i.e., Windows, Mac, and Linux).

6.1 Hardware stack

Figure 6.1 shows the hardware stack, with the specific components used in this chapter highlighted. In this chapter, we can use the mouse as a human-interactive device to interact with the robot through our web app.

6.2 Software stack

6.3 Moving robots forward and backward over the web

6.3.1 Creating a basic web application

6.3.2 Detecting failed requests

6.3.3 Moving robots forward with web apps

6.4. Creating a full-movement web app

6.4.1 Creating the full-movement application

6.4.2 Web interface design

6.4.3 Measuring application performance in the browser

6.4.4 Web hardware devices

Summary