On of the members of my team is insisting on using a stripped down computer on our robot to process the image data from a usb/firewire camera. I wish to know two things:
A: Is this legal within the FRC rulebook for 2011?
B: Is this even worth the time and manpower?
Page number/rule number will suffice for A.
Thanks for any and all help.
Custom circuits such as computers have been allowed under the custom circuit rules and disallowed under the motor and battery rules.
The motor and battery rules, however, were rewritten this year to specifically allow laptop use. So, yes it’s legal under custom circuit rules, under <R34> (battery), and under <R45> (fan motor).
As for worth time and effort, that’s something that you guys have to decide.
Here’s what I would suggest:
Try processing it on the cRIO first.
If it doesn’t get you the speed you want, then go ahead and try an additional computer. You can even make it a real-time target.
(I believe, with LabVIEW, this allows you to use the same image processing code you would use on the cRIO. I’m not sure if the same is true for WindRiver)
I would imagine the cRIO would have more than enough processing capability to track targets, especially if the code is streamlined.
The cRIO processor operates at 400MHz, and it is a simple architecture with no vector abilities. It will not set speed records for image processing. But, used wisely, it and the ip camera can be be pretty effective.
When comparing to a PC solution, be sure to measure the camera latency as well as the processing time. There are many cheaper USB and ip cameras on the market but a camera stream that is 250 or 500msec in the past is not very useful on a robot.
Greg McKaskle