Hey there! I am trying to make a project in which a user places some sort of reference point in a room, and based on your position from that reference point (only in 2 dimensions), a servo will move accordingly.
I am attempting to build a device that tracks where you move so a camera can follow you (similarly to the Swivl, but homemade)... and my original plan was to use infrared as a means of tracking, but that limits the distance you can be away from the device. I want to be able to calibrate some sort of device that knows my distance from it, and relay that information to a servo and move.
What sort of sensors would work best for this at a relatively cheap cost? UHF?
Sorry if this is a little bit vague of a post, but I'm struggling to find a starting point for a project like this. There doesn't necessarily have to be a reference point, but I need to find an efficient way to track where you are so a camera can follow you.
An arduino won't have the processing power to process video to track an object. You could do it with an ultrasonic sensor if the object is within about 4 meters.
What experience do you have with hardware and programming in C++?
Sorry about the delayed response... Okay, so I'm not trying to track anything with video, I want to create a motion tracking mount that has a camera on it (the camera will be a separate piece to the project and will not rely on the Arduino at all). I want the mount to track a person so the servo that holds the camera can follow them.
I am an Electrical Engineering Technologies student with a couple years experience with C programming (not C++) and have taken a couple classes on microcontroller programming, but have only tinkered with the Arduino with at-home research.
The reason I haven't looked into an ultrasonic sensor is because I am ultimately making this device to be able to track the movement of a classroom instructor to record lectures with ease, and an ultrasonic sensor may not be best suited for an individual person with sporadic movements.
Infrared isn't completely out of the picture, but I would like something that can be used at about a 3-4 meter minimum up to about 10 meters.
What you can do is place a LiDAR Lite V3 on a servo and sweep back and fourth around the last known point of the person to determine how far away and in what direction the person has traveled. You just need to keep track of the servo position where the LiDAR says the person is located. Of course this is a very non-rigorous and error prone method, but with enough work, it might do the job.
If the instructor would wear an IR LED emitter, that should be easy for the Pixy (CMUcam5) to track. It is Arduino compatible.