Dear: LMR
Just letting you guys know I need a camera that can recognize a laser from a long distance in a multitude of enviroments. What is your favorite machine vision sensor you would recommend to me for my robot project? Thanks!!!
From: Noah
Just letting you guys know my dad donated his pixy cam to my project. Wish me good luck!!!
**LIDAR? **
Why do you want a camera to detect lasers? Are you trying to make your own LIDAR? In terms of computer vision, I believe the most popular cameras are using a webcam paired with openCV. Higher levels of computer vision use a stero camera like the Microsoft Kinect or a LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and some people do mapping/SLAM.
If you are trying to make your own LIDAR, I would reccomend you to look into some on the market. You can buy some from various stores online. The RPLIDAR and Sweep V1 seem to be the most popular ones. I recently purchased a Neato Vacuum XV lidar on ebay, its a lidar ripped from an old vacum cleaner for around $80. I think it’s definetly the best bang for your buck, but the documentation is sparse as its a hacked lidar.
Too expensive.
Sorry but those lidars are too expensive. That is why I am making my own. THanks though!!!
Machine Vision
Noah what are you trying to do?
Are you trying to make your own laser range finder?
Give us some more details.
What software will you be using, is this Arduino or Raspberry PI or PC based?
In most cases you can get away with using an inexpensive webcam.
Here is what I am trying to do.
I am trying to make my robot be able to use SLAM without using the obnoxious amount of RAM used in a kinect sensor. with two lasers it cannot have the amazing SLAM quality from a kinect sensor but will be able to do some SLAM. Thanks!!!
Noah will you be using a PC
Noah will you be using a PC (Personal Computer) X86 or X64 and if so what Operating system?
My robot can’t move with the wait of a pc.
My robot can’t move with the wait of a pc. A pc is way to heavy.
Cylinder w/ Wobbling Sharp Sensor Array
Another option perhaps…You could try creating a small cylinder…say around 3-4 inches in diameter and an inch tall, and mount as many sharp IR sensors vertically to it around the circumference. Then mount the whole thing on top of a pan or better yet a pan and tilt.
If you were able to get say 12 around the cylinder…you’ld only have to pan the whole thing back and forth 15 degrees to the left and right. If you did it in 1 degree increments you would get a measurement for every degree. With only a 30 degree movement and a 60 hz rate on the sharps, you’ld be able to cover everything in say a half second to a second in 1 degree increments…guestimate.
You could tilt the whole thing on a periodic basis out of phase with the panning period to get some vertical resolution too.
An extruded semi-circle would work too instead of a cylinder if you didn’t care what was behind you. I would care. This setup might be able to localize using off-the-shelf algos…like Markov Localization maybe? You can also run virtual force field and other variations.
Might not be as fun as going the camera route, but it would have 360 field of view and not cost all that much. I guess the wobbling cylinder could be annoying. It could stop after a second or so when the bot stopped or when confience of surroundings was high.
Hopefully there would be no sensor interference…never tried this with Sharp sensors…would like to. It would give a lot more detail than all my sonar setups. Sonar is good though for not bumping into stuff.
I will see what I can do.
Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of room for IO on my arduino uno but I will see what I can do. I am already using 6 of 13 io pins but I will see what I can do. Thanks!!!
re: Schreiber
Cool. I recently became a fan of using mutliple Micro and Nanos and using I2C to coordinate. One can run the bot, the other can run a bunch of sensors and summarize the data…all in about the same space as a Uno with twice the power and pins. You can add more procs later if needed.
Whatever you do, I look forward to seeing it! I have always wanted to try the lasers with camera option you talk about. You are one ambitious and inspiring young man.
OMG Thanks!!!
Wow thanks!!! I think I will try that. You are too kind. Wish me good luck!!!
