The kinect on the Robot

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by robokiller

a few problems
1. bad connection between crio and kinect
2. the kinect cant use the ir depth sensor to find retro reflective tape
3. programming in java, c++, or lab view would be kind of reinventing the wheel with C# implementation of the kinect

complexity 8/10
benefits over regular camera 2/10
bragging rights 10/10

1. If you can use mySQL, the comms between the crio and kinect will be relatively simple.
2. You cannot see the retro tape, but you can see the border tape. I'm currently using depth / color intersection and a couple of std dev passes to find the backboard in less than ideal lighting situations.
3. Depending on your algorithm this may actually be a good thing. The openCV libraries are a bit overkill for this years challenge.

the benefits over a regular camera are 7/10 in my book. see my notes below.

Originally Posted by robokiller

There really isn't any.

You can use the camera to find how far away the target is. It's even easier to do with the camera even better results with the light ring.

You can use the little mount FIRST gives in the KOP for tilt on the camera.

And you can use the accelerometer in the KOP if you care to have one.

Hence we are going to use the axis camera.

All you get is bragging rights.

I was able to get a perfect vision tracking system working last year by the end of week one. This thing tracked to the target every time. It was gorgeous. Then I got to competition and realized that all my assumptions were wrong. Lighting, reflections, and angles all changed on the real field. Unless you have a legitimate field mock up with arena lighting, get ready for a world of hurt when you get to competition, and realize you get little to no time to calibrate to the field, let alone correct your assumptions that were wrong.

In 2006, it was great, we had one illuminated target that required little calibration. We averaged 8 for 10 in autonomous.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...73997861101882

The kinect helps to design a system with a much better tolerance. I would recommend testing your system in a very dimly lit room at night, and a very bright room during the day. If your system works in both, you are much more likely to have a system that will work at competition. A system with this flexibility is very difficult to achieve with just a camera and a light source. Especially from 12' away with all of the other reflections and crowd colors on the legitimate FIRST playing field.

The kinect gives me some key advantages. First off I can filter out the crowd and drivers from view. Second it helps me to separate the backboard from any other playing field object by taking the intersection of depth and color.

I don't know of any teams that were successful last year with the retro reflective tape. I believe a few will be this year, however I strongly believe that teams would be much more successful with the kinect, because there is a strong sdk backing it, and it is less susceptible to environmental variables.