Im about to start the next part in my project which is building a wirelss camera to build in my projects. Im starting this with absolutely no idea how it is going to work and if it is going tow work. Im hoping someone here may be able to point me in the right direction. The main idea of this post is for me to share my idea and see if anyone has any constructive input or critisism on it.
I think that it outputs a VGA signal. I need to get this onto a board with a processor of some kind, where i can do some basic image processing to control my bot and then to a telemetry module and then on to my pc. From there i will process the image and make my bot do whatever from there.
From what i can gather i need a powerfull mcu to deal with the image stream. My two options are a beagle board and this:
Im sure the atmega32 board will be enough to get a stream going back to my computer but im not sure if it will be enough to do any image processing. If anyone knows or knows how i could find out (other than getting one and trying it, which is the best avenue i can see at the moment) could you let me know.
WHat i would like ideally is for the processor on the bot to be able to do edge and blob detection for navigation. On the stream that goes to my computer i would like to have it do facial and object recognition. Does any one know if this is doable?
They do sell camera that are They do sell camera that are already wireless. You put a 9volt on the camera, plug in the receiving unit and connect it to a TV or computer.
Seen a lot of them about, it would be an easy solution that would have me up and running in no time, but i would miss out on a massive lurning curve and would make it harder for me to modify. The blackfin camera looks like it has everything i need on it, but again it wouldnt teach me what i wanted to know.
If this proves to be to difficult then thats the way i will go.
I wonder if you could hook I wonder if you could hook the VGA out wire on the camera to a seriel pin on a PIC and send it though a wireless adapter. I don’t know how it would keep up with bandwidth but it may be worth a shot.
Blutooth arduino here i could probably try that with. I dont know how much bandwidth it can take but if i could get even one image to my computer that would be a start.
each froame should be 75KB, which isnt as bad as i thought it would be.
1 frame = 320 x 240 pixels
1 pixel = 8 bits
1 frame = 320 x 240 bytes = 75 kB
Im gonna try it, give me an hour and i will be back in either tears of joy or frustration.
If it is 30 frames per If it is 30 frames per second it likely won’t keep up. Bluetooth in its current form is slow. The new bluetooth to be announced later this year will be faster but expensive for a few years.
It looks like the output is standard video(NTSC) Have you thought about a decoder chip such as the TI TVP5150PBS: http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tvp5150.pdf This would compress the data to an 8 bit format that might be easier for you to process/transmit. You will want to use a DSP if you want to decode the signal yourself, as you will have to sample the video signal and implement filters to obtain luminosity and chroma data from the video stream.
It works though. I have managed to get a video feed to my pc from about 30 meters outside of my house. Not a massive distance but the video is not encoded and the hardware looks pretty simple so im hoping i can boost the signal somehow. On the pc side of things i bought a video capture adapter for my pc. I havent tried to open the video feed in jave yet but thats the next step.
After that i plan on mounting the wireless device on something. I did consider the cat but im scared it will drop off. Guibot is looking like a good candidate.
I managed to find a toy rc car(spy car on amazon) that had a built in camera/reciever setup for about $50 on sale. I ended up pulling out the camera gear, desoldering, and bulding a new set of boards for the components(no simple task mind you).The camera transmits to a receiver that connects to a headset so I don’t have a feed to the comp, but I’ve read online that some people have piped the signal to a capture device and was able to use it with some webcam software. Not sure I want to hack the headset, but still sounds like a cool idea. As far as the setup that I have now, it gets pretty decent range and it’s pretty cool if ya ask me.
As I’ve been gone for a while, I hadn’t posted the updates to this equipment for a while. I’ve done some work on it though and trimmed the boards so that they fit in small cases.
I couldn’t find any info on the video tx/rx gear online, but from I’ve deduced from the various contacts, this also is capable of audio transmissions as well as a couple different channels it can transmit on. I’m not sure I want to risk fragging the gear as it’s a nice compact setup though.
