I am very excited about Johnny 5 model and I would like to pick him for my university AI project. Nevertheless, before the final verdict I would highly appreciate advices of some skillful folks here because I am a total beginner at this field. I am a pure programmer and I have not even assembled any robot in my life so that be nice to me when it comes to hardware terms, please:-).
The project goal:
A robot that is able to carry out text commands in a natural language.
Examples of such commands would be:
Find a red cube and pick it.
Scan your surroundings and obtain 2D map of it.
Find a white object and follow its movement (e.g. the rabbit )
The solution outline:
Software part:
Natural language commands are parsed with a program in Prolog that extracts known subgoals (e.g. “pick subgoalâ€
I think you should use some sensors. Why? because if the intelligence is going to be artificial then you’d want the robot to sense its environment.
As far as cameras go, I would recommend something like This. Since you are using Roborealm, Nothing special is really required unless you need a good amount of frames per second. And I think you would only need one camera, As I really see no point in two. And if you are going to use a camera like the one I linked to, you would need to buy a video capture card for the computer that’s going to be running roborealm.
Well, I saw somewhere that two cameras are better for object recognition but I might be wrong. What do you think?
The main think that bothers me is whether I really need a wireless camera or if it is possible to send video data with the blueSMiRF modem after connecting a camera to SSC-32 board digital input.
The ssc-32 is a servo control board with some digital/analog data capabilities. It performs no video functions. The bot hardware is pretty straight foward. You first probably need to focus on the AI programming part of your project. For little initial investment you can start working on the difficult part of your project, and spend the $$$ for the hardware when the bot control issues have been sorted out.
You are basically saying it would be possible to connect a camera to SSC-32 and then transmit raw data using the modem to a host computer but it would be huge amount of data because there are no compression functions on SSC-32, right? Because I am not interested in any other video functions, I just want to transmit video data to a host computer for RoboRealm to process it. Well, aren’t there some cameras with built-in compression?
Basically, I want to know If I can connect a sensor to SSC-32 and the bluetooth device to SSC-32 to enable wireless transmitting of data from a sensor. I comprehend that the catch could be in the amount of data from a sensor (e.g. in case of a video camera). If this is the problem, tell me please.
Good idea, I will propose it to my project leader. But I need to be quite sure about hardware I will be programming for and Johnny 5 is not the only one adept for my project (I am thinking about SRV-1 too, which is cheaper and more compact).
No, the ssc-32 will not support any video transport of which I am aware (study the ssc-32 user’s manual to understand what it is and how it works). Bluetooth devices that support rs232 data transmission may work with the ssc-32. As to data, the ssc-32 has four pins that can accept digital input (hi/lo voltage), or analog voltage input which is converted to an 8 bit byte output. A sensor that has a high/low or analog voltage output may work with an ssc-32. Most people use inexpensive wireless cams like below. Not sure how well RoboRealm will interact with other programming that may be required.
Cool. Thank you very much for information. Btw. I wonder at the moment if all the necessary wires and fasteners are included in the Johnny 5 complete kit. Are they?
In roborelm, 2 cameras with a known distance between them could track the same object, determine the difference in position of the COG of the object across the two frames to determine the distance of the object from the cameras. From there one could the find the size of the object. With some localization hardware, a robot could then map its surroundings.
Is 5 lbs payload limit of the tracked base due to the lexan construction or due to power of the motors? My Johnny 5 is going to weigh up to 4.8 kg in total and I wonder if the motors can handle that weight well or if I am going to need an upgrade. Regarding the construction I will probably replace the lexan plates with something more solid not to have Johnny 5 in two pieces
(but that will add some weight…)
The amount of permitable payload depends mostly on what surface the robot is to be operated on. For indoor operation on tile floors you will be able to carry a lot. But if you want to operate the bot on shag carpet the motors can bog down significantly with too much additional payload.
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