- We want to use Simulink via Mathlab but it does not support Bluetooth.
- We want to replace the Lego Mindstorm OS with the EV3Dev operating system
- We ultimately want to be able to control our EV3 through a tiny Java Web Server called Lejos so we can control our robot over the web.
The EV3 supports WiFi but not natively, so you have in purchase and install a WiFi dongle that attaches to the USB port on the Mindstorm.
So how hard can it be to install a WiFi dongle? The has a limited number of WiFi options, in fact only one WiFi dongle is supported by Lego, the rather cumbersome NETGEAR N150 Wireless Adapter (WNA1100) . However, we did some research and found a smaller version which will fit in with the Technic beams more seamlessly. The WiFi adapter we purchased was the Edimax EW-7811Un 150Mbps 11n Wi-Fi USB Adapter, Nano Size. You can purchase through Amazon here. It's less than $10 and comes with free shipping!
We plugged the WiFi dongle into our EV3 and went to settings on the Brick and enabled the wifi option (this is a really good tutorial on how to turn on wifi for the EV3). We than opened up the software and tried to connect the EV3to the computer.
After trying to get the robot to connect 5 times, we still got the same error message so we turned to our good friend Google. It than became apparent that lots of people had the same problem. To troubleshoot the problem we downloaded a program called Wireshark that allows you to see whats happening on your network including how the traffic from the EV3 was going across the network. We could see that the EV3 was polling every 10 seconds via UDP packets its Serial number on Port 5555. We then tried to wake our EV3 by sending it a packet via TCP/IP using a different program called packet sender. Packet Sender allows you to send messages to things (like your robot). This helped us understand that the EV3 was on the network and was accessible to receiving packets.
It turns out it wasn't that simple. Although we were able to connect the EV3 to our network and successfully assign it an IP Address, we couldn't get the Mindstorm software to recognize our EV3 was accessible via WiFi.
After trying to get the robot to connect 5 times, we still got the same error message so we turned to our good friend Google. It than became apparent that lots of people had the same problem. To troubleshoot the problem we downloaded a program called Wireshark that allows you to see whats happening on your network including how the traffic from the EV3 was going across the network. We could see that the EV3 was polling every 10 seconds via UDP packets its Serial number on Port 5555. We then tried to wake our EV3 by sending it a packet via TCP/IP using a different program called packet sender. Packet Sender allows you to send messages to things (like your robot). This helped us understand that the EV3 was on the network and was accessible to receiving packets.
We turned back to our Mindstorm program, praying to the great gods of lego that we would be able to find a different way to connect to wifi. We connected our robot via USB cord in hopes to that we could connect it to the wifi that way. After analyzing every single option in the EV3 software we noticed that in tools there was an option called "Wireless setup" we clicked on it and it pulled up this
We than selected the wifi we wanted to connect to, typed in the password and voila, we were connected to the wifi!
So really the steps are pretty simple, plug in your WiFi Dongle, Connect your EV3 via USB, Select the Wireless setup menu option under Tools in the Mindstorm software and then follow the wizard to connect your Mindstorm to your wireless network!
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