arrow detection via image processing

I'm going to make a robot which can detect arrows. (3-5cm width arrow heads), I need to know, can Arduino give a solution ? if so what is the exact camera that I need to use with arduino. (as I know JPEG Color Camera is too much for arduino) and what codes and libraries that I can use to program. any guidance will be appreciated. :slight_smile:

Can you be more specific.

Perhaps post a picture of what sort of arrows you mean?

Only the most sophisticated robots of today are barely capable of detecting for example a cup in a room.
If you are looking for something like that, it's going to take years to develop.

But something simpler could be realistic like a picture showing an arrow pointing to a specific direction...

Arduino will not have enough memory to hold an image of decent size, let alone analyze it. It would be easier to process the image on a computer.

We are working on a way to do this stay tuned. The plan is to be able to access a portion of an uncompressed image stored in RAM.
http://arduino.cc/forum/index.php/topic,119767.0.html

I think it would be a relatively straight forward marker detection problem if you use a webcam connected to a PC and have that send the results of the analysis to the robot controller. Entirely up to you how much of the PC is physically on the robot - it would not be difficult to have a wireless connected between the webcam, PC and Arduino.

If you are using an arduino MEGA, you can go get a QuadRAM from Rugged Circuits for $25, so you get 512KB of RAM. Arduino UNO has no such thing yet.

PeterH:
I think it would be a relatively straight forward marker detection problem if you use a webcam connected to a PC and have that send the results of the analysis to the robot controller. Entirely up to you how much of the PC is physically on the robot - it would not be difficult to have a wireless connected between the webcam, PC and Arduino.

This the method I am currently working on.

  1. A 'bot controlled by an uno,

  2. wifi using the wireless SD shield for coms to between the uno and the PC (I'm using a Wifly module with the same foot print as an Xbee

  3. carrying a wifi/ip cam (google foscam) with the image to the PC of course,

4 And the image processing software on the PC to workout the control command to send to the uno

The method is known as horse and ride (or jockey) as the rider controls the direction and speed and the horse its legs and feet.

I'm sure that the uno without any additions (other than an SD card) can be made to do it all but its 2000+ man hours of work and not what chips like the AT's are intended to be used for.

Mark