Low-Cost Wi-Fi First-Person-View Streaming for an RC Boat Using an ESP32-CAM and a Smartphone VR Headset
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: First-person-view (FPV) video lets the operator of a remote-controlled (RC) vehicle see from the vehicle's own point of view, but commercial FPV kits are costly and are designed for larger vehicles. This paper describes a low-cost FPV system for a small toy RC boat. An AI-Thinker ESP32-CAM module with an OV3660 image sensor is mounted on the boat and streams live Motion-JPEG (MJPEG) video over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi to a smartphone. The video is shown side by side on the phone screen, and the phone is placed in a Cardboard-style headset, so the driver sees the boat's view while steering with the boat's original, unmodified remote control. We describe the hardware, the power arrangement, the firmware configuration, the upload problem we met and its solution, and a browser page that shows a single camera stream to both eyes. We also document a battery-powered design with a boost converter and three printed circuit board (PCB) designs prepared in KiCad. The prototype shows that a complete FPV link can be assembled from inexpensive off-the-shelf modules. Quantitative range, latency and run-time measurements were not taken and are identified as future work, with a proposed measurement procedure.
Authors: Patil, Meeta, Nagpal, Reyansh, Wadekar, Neal
Institution: Somaiya Vidyavihar University
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225431735