Originally Posted by Dr.Bot (Post 1333419)

I am continuing to experiment with the Pandaboard, as a possible on board co- processor. Would there be any rule prohibiting the use of an on-board mini-lcd monitor and keyboard on the Robot? This would be for displaying on-board status of sensors/electronics and aligning the robot with vision targets for autonomous mode.

While I have been successful capturing Kinect depth camera data on the Pandaboard, it is unlikely that we will be using the Kinect this year. Having a lot of success the Axis/Roborealm and the vision targets on the DS. We have replaced our classmate with $300 Asus netbook.

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot (Post 1333419)

I am continuing to experiment with the Pandaboard, as a possible on board co- processor. Would there be any rule prohibiting the use of an on-board mini-lcd monitor and keyboard on the Robot? This would be for displaying on-board status of sensors/electronics and aligning the robot with vision targets for autonomous mode.

While I have been successful capturing Kinect depth camera data on the Pandaboard, it is unlikely that we will be using the Kinect this year. Having a lot of success the Axis/Roborealm and the vision targets on the DS. We have replaced our classmate with $300 Asus netbook.

Originally Posted by faust1706 (Post 1329955)

2012:
1. A custom build computer running ubuntu
2. OpenCV in C
3. Microsoft Kinect
4. UDP
2013:
1. O-Droid X2
2. OpenCV in C
3. Microsoft kinect with added illuminator
4. UDP
2014.
1. 3 or 4 O-Droid XUs
2. OpenCV in C++ and OpenNI
3. Genius 120 with the ir filter removed and the asus xtion for depth
4. UDP

Having sent off a number of people well on their way for computer vision, I can now offer help to more people. If you want some sample code in OpenCV in C and C++, pm your email so I can share a dropbox with you.

Tutorial on how to set up vision like we did: http://ratchetrockers1706.org/vision-setup/

Originally Posted by yash101 (Post 1330096)

Well, 1706 loves using the Kinect, and they say that they will use 3 cameras. I guess that there will be one for each camera and one for the kinect. Maybe one of them does the data manipulation, or maybe it is done on the cRIO.

By the way, Hunter, how do you prevent your ODROIDs from corrupting from the rapid power-down? Do you have a special mechanism to shut down each node? Also, which converter are you using to power the Kinect? I don't think it would be wise to connect it directly to the battery/PDB, etc. You'd need some 12v-12v converter to eliminate the voltage drops/spikes!

As for your query of multi-noded, I think you are misunderstanding what he is doing, having a computer for each of the 3-4 cameras onboard the bot. Hunter will probably just use regular UDP sockets, as he said in his post. Either one UDP connection per XU can be used to the cRIO, or maybe there can be a master XU, that communicates with each slave XU, processed what they see, and beams the info to the cRIO!

However, I think it is still overkill to have more than 2 onboard computers, except the cRIO!

Originally Posted by yash101 (Post 1336467)

Well, for an SBC, you'd like a 12v-5v converter. a 12v-12v bfore that can stabilize the voltage a bit too. Typically an SBC would be very stable because the 5v converters are a high quality. however, try to make sure you properly shut down the sbc after the match!

By the way, I am talking about the same model VR as what powers the D'Link!

Originally Posted by yash101 (Post 1336718)

That will be good. However, spend at least $50 and buy from a very reputable company. Voltage spikes are many and they will either damage the NUC or they will cause it to reset once-in-a-while.

If that's not too easy to find, get a 12-20 or a bit higher boost converter and use an LDO to bring it down to 19v. BEWARE. THAT WILL GET VERY HOT

So, for now, just find a very high quality boost converter, 12 to 19 volts. Also make sure it has a good driver because a faulty chipset can cause stray voltages to leak in. The NUC is expensive so not the type of thing to break.

By the way, where'd you purchase the NUC from and how much did it cost? Also, how much time did it take from order to delivery?

Originally Posted by Dr.Bot (Post 1337287)

On the Pandaboard, I had trouble using the Kinect and openni drivers. A friend told me that in general OpenCV and Openni are optimized for Intel/AMD and don't work well with ARM. I did have better luck with the Freenect drivers with my Pandaboard/ROS/Kinect experiment. I did get depth camera data from this arrangement. I didn't think it was worth the effort to convert to PCL(point cloud library) for range to the wall in autonomous mode.

I think Odroid is AM based? So I don't know. Besides, I think the Axis camera will do just fine, and I don't see any compelling reason to use the Kinect for this years game. Just got a hold of a Radxa ock (ARM) board. It looks pretty powerful but there is no time to get on this year's bot.

Originally Posted by faust1706 (Post 1337316)

OpenCV and OpenNI work with ARM just fine in my expirience with using 2 different ARM boards with the libraries (The odroid x2 and XU)

I have said this before, but I will reiterate it: Do not rely on the kinect giving accurate depth measurements at a competition. There are so many stage lights saturating the field with IR light that the ir pattern the kinect emits will be flooded out and the depth map most likely won't work.

I have a quick install of opencv and libfreenect if you're interested, and a bunch of demo programs I wrote that explores a lot of the opencv and opencv2 libraries.

Originally Posted by charr (Post 1337323)

I'd be very interested in samples and info on OpenCV and the Odroid-XU