Kinect on the robot

Technical Sensors
1

During kickoff this morning, it sounded like the robots could have a connect on the robot and I didn’t see any rule banning it. I can’t seem to find any sample code or anything for it. This year, there is no ban on second onboard computers (as long as they are not the master controler), so in theory, could you have a computer on board to process Kinect information and pass it to the CRIO via ethernet? I don’t think my team will do this, but I am wondering what other people think on this. I think this would be a great way to track the hoops and tell the robot where to shoot balls.

2

The question comes down to how you are going to power that on board computer. The rule right now is:

[R36]
The only legal source of electrical energy for the Robot during the competition is one MK ES17-12 12VDC non-spillable lead acid battery, or one EnerSys NP 18-12 battery, as provided in the 2012 KOP. This is the only battery allowed on the Robot.

Batteries integral to and part of a COTS computing device are also permitted (i.e. laptop batteries), provided they’re only used to power the COTS computing device.

So does this mean that a laptop battery can exist on the robot? If no, the kinetic is out unless someone would like to write a driver for it and somehow interface with the cRIO (no usb and the usb module is storage only right now…)

The other thing is cost. Is the value of the laptop going to put the robot over the limit?

With these in mind 706 is most likely not going to pursue using the kinect and instead stay with our trusted webcam vision and target tracking.

3

As long as the laptop battery is integral to the laptop, the laptop is COTS, and the laptop battery does not power ANYTHING else … then Yes the laptop with battery is allowed.

Oh, and the Kinect is not powered by the USB port, it has it’s own power input that is integrated into it’s custom (But COTS to the Kinect) USB cable.

4

This is a cool application of the Kinect with the code…

5

There is a conversation about this going on here: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?t=99275

Feel free to chime in there!