Does anybody have experience with a system that uses the pan webcam module to track an object, like the top basketball hoop’s reflective tape, regardless of the direction the robot is facing?
I did some prototyping, a while back using a pan camera but did not find it particularly useful. have you tried this yet?
It looks like andymark still sells the pan/tilt assembly used a few years ago with the Axis camera.
Greg Mckaskle
If you do use that pan tilt assembly, make sure that you insulate the camera from the robot frame. The back of the Axis camera is connected to the camera’s ground, and can provide a sneaky violation of the frame isolation rules.
I’m asking if anyone has successfully programmed the webcam to track something, and for the webcam to pan when the object it is tracking starts to go off the screen (ie robot turning). I would use this (1) so that the driver will always know what direction to turn to be head-on with the basket, or even better (2) having the ball launcher swivel so it is always facing the top basket, and adding an ir range finder to semi or fully automate the shooting angle.
If you have the pan tilt assembly from 2009 and a target, there is an example in the vision folder that does this. You can also see videos of teams doing it that year, such as http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=M84hL57QUvg
Greg Mckaskle
That is definitely isn’t the right link, but thanks anyway, I’ll search youtube.
Sorry about that, I was using an iPad and did a copy/paste and trusted that it would work. The attached video is one of the many movies showing the pan/tilt used to track a color. Note that the target that year was a combination of fabrics, and the results on the field were not nearly as good as in the lower light environments.
Greg McKaskle