Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderLuke
Two things:
1. What settings would you alter in order to get the best performance? Actual numbers on specific settings would be very helpful, I'm curious to know what you did to have the best performance possible.
2. What benefits did you find in changing the lens? What issues did you experience that made you look into changing the lens?
|
The Pixy is primarily a color sensor, so there is a balance to be found between consistently seeing what you want it to see with the exclusion of everything else. There are settings within the Pixymon calibration program to teach it how close is close enough to be considered a target, camera exposure, white balance, etc. We had some control over potential interference sources because we were looking for the specific orange of our targeting LEDs. We chose orange because it was not present in the field lighting. Others use green, YMMV. I don't know specific calibration numbers, as the robot is hibernating at the school.
The lens choice was also made to reduce the potential sources for false targeting. Using the Pixymon program to see what the camera saw, the 51 degree lens gave us the best view of the field with the least view beyond it.
The system was not perfect and needed tweaking along the way. The scrolling LED display along the arena perimeter at champs was occasionally orange and had to be considered. We also found that the end wall diamond plate at champs was highly polished, far more so than at our district events. That caused or robot to shoot at its own reflection once in autonomous (funny in hindsight). After teaching it to turn 30 degrees to starboard before looking for a target that was no longer an issue.
The Pixy can actually be set to look for 7 simultaneous colors. Who knows, that may be useful this year.