Eye Tracking

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1

Hello all. This is a neewbie question / help wanted.
The problem to solve is : I need to make some kind of simple motion tracking. Basically, I have what is effectively a lazy susan to be driven by an electric motor to rotate it and follow someone when they walk by it, over less than 150 degrees and upto 6 feet away. I don’t know if it would be best to fit say 3 sensors (one in the middle and one either side) or increase the sensors on either side so that it has a wider field of view with more accuracy, maybe 5 sensors in total.

I have seen the setup for the 4WD Rover (Autonomous) in the bb2pdf.pdf document, this looks similar to what I want to achieve. Could I just swap the GP2D12’s for ultrasonic sensors?

I have read up on IR and Ultrasonic, and I think I will have to go the way of ultrasonic as this can detect people a room length away, say 6 feet. (Not to sure which ultrasonic sensor to go for though)

I have just thought about using a stepper motor instead of a normal motor, would that be easier/better/cheaper

I have seen electronic items which I’ll list, hopefully I can do this for under / around-a-bout $200

Looking at the above mentioned 4WD Rover as a base:
One x Bot Board II
One x Sabertooth motor controller (suitable for one small electric motor)
Three x Ultrasonic sensors (Maybe IR if someone thinks there better)
Maybe a gyro so that it could return itself to a central starting position after a set time (would be a nice to have option that!)

The final bit would be what programming would be needed. Has someone already written programming for it that they could give me.

Any help on this mamouth task will be appriciated.

2

perhaps you could use a servo instead of a conventional motor or stepper. then you wouldn’t need a gyro or accelerometer to move back to default. I don’t think the project would cost 200$.

also, if you end up using Basic Stamp 2 as your platform, i may be able to write a bit of code. (a bit)

3

I’d use a servo to rotate the lazy susan, and use IR heat detectors to locate the person. Billy bass and talking santas and such use IR to detect when people walk by. Security lights use IR at fairly long distances to detect people. A servo could be used to pan a detector looking for a person. Is a computer to be used or a microcontroller?

4

Another solution is to use a color video camera and Roborealm software which is free to the community. Jameco sells a small wireless color video camera for around $80. Roborealm has the ability to track objects in real time.

For more info: www.roborealm.com