This is the first part of my project #4. I show here how I can control the right wheel of the Pololu 3pi robot using the coordinate X of the motion tracking of an object (red circle).
The web cam detects and track the red dot using Roborealm. Then the X coordinate is send to the Osepp Uno (Arduino compatible) module. This module run a C code and scales the coordinate X and generates an analog voltage proportional of the X value. This voltage is send to the MiniMax51 module (by Bipom) who reads the analog value and after another scaling, send it via XBee to the robot.
Not sure how it is all going to come together to become a soccer robot but it looks like a cool implementation of optical recognition and a really cool little round rover bot.
Hello Goofballtech and thank you for your comments. So far, the Arduino compatible board is the last actor in my project. Why? Because I am going to need trigonometry functions to play with in my calculations to make the robot find the ball. My next step is using a ceiling camera, detect the XY coordinates of the robot and the ball. Then, calculating the slope angle of the line between them, send steering and throttle commands to the robot to find the ball. I think this can enlighten you a bit about my project.
I have planned to start with 'half' of the total play area: 4 x 3 ft with only one goal. The camera is located 4 ft above the field. Throughout this project, I attempt to explore the integration of cutting edge technologies like XBee (2.4GHz RF), micro-controllers, vision software, math and computing. I thought of a soccer robot to make it friendly. Let me tell you, I don't know if the size of the field will be enough for the corrected trajectories of the robot or if tomorrow I am going to need a better micro-controller or vision system, but so far, my project has become more complex and exciting!
