IP camera setup and control from a C++ application

Question

I would like to control a small robot based on arduino and an IP camera from a PC via WIFI, but I have been browsing the internet for quite a while now and I am still not sure how to set it up.

I thought of having on the robot a WIFI router such as this one, linked via ethernet to an arduino which will control the motors, and also linked via WIFI to an IP motorised camera next to it (I couldn't find such a small router with several ports). I would connect my laptop to the network broadcasted by this router (I can't use my school's network) to send commands to either the camera or the arduino, and retrieve the video from the camera.

Now, I've looked everywhere but couldn't find how I could interface with the camera from my client application on the laptop (C++/Qt/Windows)? OpenCV sounds apropriate for the live stream but what about its motors?

Answer 1

The IP camera does not need to be linked with the Arduino software. Sometimes it is better to use the simplest solution to reach a good result. I have done the same on one of my robot and I run the IP camera separately from the Arduino network so I can use all the feature of the camera that has the own app. It is possible to run the robot from a custom made app that launches also the camera app in a separate window within the same application. In this way you can have the motion motors controls and in a window of your app you can host the camera software and make the customer experience unified. Just work on your controls and colors in order to harmonize the layout of the form. You can find more references on how to code it here and here to start.