Arduino - but how small?

Hello again!

I have written a topic before, and the answers for my idea wasn't positive, so i went back to the drawing board.

Now i have another idea, which might work better.
I just want to know how small would it be possible to make an Arduino, if the components were, a videocamera, a wireless transmitter and two buttons?

I want the camera to send live images to another product, and recieve commands.
The delay from video to another product and back and perform a task, should be as fast as possible, but at the moment i dont have a max amount of delay.

How small can the arduino be?

I juist need a valid guess, not precise measures.

Thanks in advance!

How small can the arduino be?

Maybe 1x1 inches depending on the chip used.

Honestly I think more details are required. For example how can a video camera be part of an Arduino?


Rob

The project is still in the early stages and maybe a normal camera taking a row of photos instead, will be enough.
I am looking to make it as small as possible, as said earlier.

The camera will be connected by wires, and will be places somewhere close to the arduino.

Find a suitable camera and post a link to it. Then we can consider the size of the other components.

...R

I'm sorry, I thought I posted the link.. Seems like I didn't.
Well, this could be more or less a setup like my idea.

I need to transmit the picture to a phone, and the phone needs to send a command back, like, if the phone detects a green circle, it will send a command, to open a door something else physical.

You are not going to send a picture in under 10 to 15 seconds using an arduino and jpeg encoding camera. Is that fast enough?

From looking at that diydrones link, I don't think the Arduino has anything to do with transmitting the video signal.

...R

Have you looked at the CMUCam? They make a camera module that lets you offload a lot of the data-intensive stuff to the camera board. They advertise it as being capable of some simple image recognition; you should consider whether it could solve your problem without needing to send the images anywhere.

Also - is the phone required for the application, or are you just thinking of offloading image recognition to it?

Regarding the question of size, it's the size of the camera you're using, plus the size of the MCU board.
Use an Arduino Micro/Nano/Mini or knockoff, and depending on the exact one, you've got something around 1-2 square inches of board size. The camera is probably larger, so you might be able to hide the arduino behind the camera. The buttons - well, how small a button can you find that you can figure out how to mount?
If you're making your own PCB, you could probably make it a little smaller, but not by all that much; the Arduino Mini is pretty aggressively miniaturized. The biggest gain might be from putting the buttons onto the board. If you don't need to send the photo through the arduino, though, you could probably get away with an ATTiny, which would enable a board a bit smaller.

DrAzzy:
Have you looked at the CMUCam? They make a camera module that lets you offload a lot of the data-intensive stuff to the camera board. ...

Also - is the phone required for the application, or are you just thinking of offloading image recognition to it?...

That reply is great stuff to read!

I havent actually heard of CMUCam before. - This is great, really! This could easy of my project maybe.
But i dont need that much process power as this one have. - I'm aiming for a small compact and lightweight, vision recognition and processing product.

  • Are there any similar product, that doesn't have AS much power?

  • But this is still in the development phase, and maybe i should stick with this, and make a more clumsy looking product, that actually works, and further development could be resizing it?

  • And the phone is to keep the product itself even smaller by offloading images yes.

Grumpy_Mike:
You are not going to send a picture in under 10 to 15 seconds using an arduino and jpeg encoding camera. Is that fast enough?

I think he wants to stream video.

Let's say i will stay with the CMUCam...

Now I have a camera with a board that can procces the images and much more.
The next thing is adding 2 maybe 3 buttons, for simple tasks like power on and power off, or start, stop, test.

Will an actual arduino be required for this, or can I do this on CMUCam? Hm?

If not.. let's say I have 5 leds in a row. CMUCam it hovering over a text showing: 1324. The CMUCam should now sent a signal for each number, making first 1 led light up, then 3, 2 and 4.
The buttons could be: Start sending signals from camera input to led, and stop.

How much power is actually needed from an arduino? If only a few recognitions are needed? in this example 9.
I dont know much about each arduino product. I have so far, only worked with the classic Arduino Uno.

And thank you for the answers already. This has helped me a lot already!