CMUCam for drivers
 

Ok, I missed some of kickoff, but I've asked other team members the following question:
Do the rules prohibit sending the cmucam data back to the driver so he can watch first person?

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Explicitly, I don't think so. However, how would you get the data back to the user? Wireless devices are typically disallowed.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Well, you are allowed to hook up a laptop to the Dashboard port. I don't know, but it may be possible to get an image from the camera here, IDK.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

The rules say that you have to ask permission of the officials to use live cammera immages or something like that.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

The serial connection they give you doesn't have enough bandwidth to constantly give you pictures, never mind actual video. Plus the picture quality that it gives is very crummy.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

From the Section 5 of this year's rules:

<R94> Any decorations that involve broadcasting a signal to/from the robot, such as remote cameras, must be cleared with FIRST Engineering prior to use. Teams may not use 900 MHz camera systems.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

It is more severe than that:

Note that the third bullet prohibits any kind of wireless transmission.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

You guys have read that the B/W video is low resolution, right?

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Wireless transmission is prohibited for functional parts, in this case it's a non-functional decorative part.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Any display of "robo-camera-view" to the drivers would have to be considered a functional, not decorative, capability and would be subject to the restrictions against wireless communications. Within the rules, it is technically possible to get an image from the CMUcamII back to the OI and potentially displayed on a dashboard computer. However, it is not practical. As previously noted, you cannot add another wireless modem/transmitter to the robot, so any signal must be passed through the RC and IFI radio. So the image from the camera must be encoded, passed through the TTL port on the RC, dumped into one of the data buffers and packetized, sent via the IFI radio to the OI radio, stripped out of the packets, passed through the dashboard port, and re-assembled on the dashboard computer. The biggest bottleneck in the process is the link speed between the RC and OI radios, which were never designed for streaming video (remember, they are only 9600baud radio modems). So, at the end of the process, you are able to get one image about every 60 seconds. Hardly worth it.

-dave

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Hey, Since I think this thread allows asking this and I couldn't find anything in the search:

Are you allowed to hook up a laptop to the UI during the competition?

I heard people saying you can't but I've just never seen it in the rulebook ...

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Yes, laptops can be hooked up to the Dashboard port on the OI.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Sweet, and your sure you can use that during the actual 2:15 min Game to Monitor your Robot? That would make me really happy : )!

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

See rule <R66>.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Well if you can't use it to send video back to the drivers, how about using it to record the 15 seconds of autonomous so that you can play back what it saw, just to give you some idea of why certain things happened. It would be a very very usefull debugging tool.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Yes, I think it's a useful thing.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Where would you store the 15 seconds of digitized video? There is not enough memory in the RC.

-dave

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Guy with video camera on side of field = more practical.

I mean cmon.. the video resolution is like 177 x 200 or something stupid like that. Its made to find color blobs, not to take pictures.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

I don't know, the camera itself is very low res, on the other hand, I think that the rules would allow you to mount a small wireless camera if it had been cleared with FIRST engineering beforehand. You could not allow anyone on the competition floor to see this feed, but you can buy very small UHF (TV channell 16-22 are cheap) transmitters. I have always thought that it would be good to have some on-board video to use for promotional purposes.

On another front, we have played around with using mini ultrasonic sensors to gather data, encoding it on an IC, sending the completed packets back through to the dashboard and using the laptop connected to the dashboard to reconstruct a robot view. I do not think that this would violate any rules since we can have external processors this year, and we would be sending the signal through the FRC modem. We were thinking of using one to help us line up with the remote loading stations.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

As far as R66 you are allowed to recieve Data from a Laptop during competition, but sending data (for outsourcing proccessing) may not be include in that or??

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Allow me to clarify.

Ultra sonic => Microprocessor (compression) => FRC controller => dashboard

It is OK to have subsidiary processors on the robot, they simply cannot send motor control signals. If this was not the case, the camera would be illegal.

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Ah ok, so the Dashboard Output is Read Only ok ...

Re: CMUCam for drivers
 

Yes, dashboard is read-only. If you were to send commands back to the robot, then the laptop could operate as an outboard processor and would effectively be part of the robot. (Boy, wouldn't that just blow your budget out of the water!)

That said, and on the subject of dashboards... the rules state that the Dashboard port can be used to feed "a computing device" for operator feedback. So, if you can't afford a laptop, a Basic Stamp connected to an Epson LCD display and some lights would essentially cover the requirement as long as the assembly were self powered (batteries).

Steve