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Unread 14-01-2011, 22:19
MaxKinect MaxKinect is offline
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FRC #0494
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Goodrich Michigan
Posts: 13
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Re: Kinect is Legal for Both Drive Station and Field Use (Here’s why)

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Even if it is legal, it shouldn't be. Too many Kinect's on the field could definitely cause too much interference and unexpected results
Because the Kinect controller uses a pattern match on a non-repeating caustic pattern it is very resistant to interference. When there is a problem, the area of the problem is marked with a 'unknown' depth code (2047).

When we use a standard light camera there are hundreds of interference artifacts each frame that must be filtered out, this is not needed with the kinect.

We have tried to use sonar sensors in the past, but everything interferes with them.

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There are also other things to worry about such as IR-absorbent material on the field
Our testing so far has found only mirrors to be a problem. Carpet, the logo tubes and other robots (we have lots of them) image very well.

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not even to mention the difficulties you will have in getting the Kinect to work through the cRIO.
This is no problem at all; we can use laptops on our robots this year. Kinect runs very well in both windows 7 and XP. We also can connect the laptop to the crio's second network port.


This is my seventh year as mentor in FIRST, this is the first time it is possible to use leading edge tech in our robot. We may not make it to the field because of FIRST stopping up, but we will not stop trying to make the best robot possible. We will be able to use our new tech in off season competitions and most importantly demonstrations to new students and sponsors.

This is the begining of new age, the natural computer (robot) interface.