Society of Robots - Robot Forum

General Misc => Robot Videos => Topic started by: popayseaman on July 28, 2008, 03:01:28 PM

Title: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on July 28, 2008, 03:01:28 PM
These are three videos showing my robot doing simple, rule based navigation using stereo vision and wheel encoders only

[youtube]GTAe7WfMrbI[/youtube]

[youtube]ca6m7kUAglI[/youtube]

[youtube]9mknQOJgVlk[/youtube]
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: airman00 on July 28, 2008, 04:16:15 PM
awesome bot

can you please provide more details on the software and hardware setup?
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: BANE on July 28, 2008, 07:30:01 PM
thats a laptop right?  where did you get the vision sensors or what ever you used?

bane
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on July 29, 2008, 11:58:13 AM
Most of the hardware comes from Robot Electronics http://www.robot-electronics.co.uk/index.html
All the software running on the laptop I've done by myself.
The stereo camera is a pair of Logitech Quick Cam webcams stripped of their plastic globes and housed in
an aluminium box. The original optics was also changed with a higher quality one.
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: airman00 on July 29, 2008, 02:37:05 PM
cool, you should document this robot and enter it in the contest here!

can u please post your source code?
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: SeagullOne on July 30, 2008, 01:25:39 AM
Yes! I, too, would love to see your source code! What programming language did you use? C? C++? Python?

Loren
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on July 30, 2008, 07:07:41 AM
I've registered for the competition, so I will be releasing a tutorial about my robot soon.
It's all written in C/C++
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on August 16, 2008, 08:09:29 AM
hm, it seems I won't be able to prepare a tutorial in time for the competition, just not enough time and too busy at work.
some time later may be
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on October 09, 2008, 03:47:05 PM
Navigation with a map

[youtube]c6r-oMy1A0E[/youtube]
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: Admin on October 10, 2008, 07:22:47 AM
Whoa nice job! Now, make it faster and go from your room to your fridge! (serious :P)

Also, perhaps write up a tutorial or documentation on it? ;D
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: airman00 on October 10, 2008, 07:49:30 AM
Also, perhaps write up a tutorial or documentation on it? ;D

please write up documentation or a tutorial! You would definitely win the SoR Robot Contest
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on October 10, 2008, 12:29:56 PM
> Now, make it faster and go from your room to your fridge!

he he, that's the ultimate goal, yes  :)
but I will have to make it also distinguish between Carlsberg and Fosters ;D
and hopefully make it capable of frying eggs as well  :D

I promise I will write a tutorial at some point, it's just much more fun working on the above things than on documentation
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: SciTech02 on October 10, 2008, 06:29:26 PM
Very nice job!  The map looks like it was made by the robot itself (based on its stereo cameras).  If it is, you could develop a simutaneuos localization and mapping program (SLAM), that would be really cool.  8)

Now if the robot had voice recognition and text-to-speech abilities, it would be the ultimate robot IMO... 
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: andd64 on October 12, 2008, 02:46:55 PM
did you use roborealm or it is strictly all your code? 

The stereo camera is a pair of Logitech Quick Cam webcams stripped of their plastic globes and housed in
an aluminium box. The original optics was also changed with a higher quality one.

where did you get the higher quality optics from?

very nice job btw!! 
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: hgordon on October 12, 2008, 07:48:09 PM
You will find a lot of detail on Bob's work here -
    http://code.google.com/p/sentience/

and here -
    http://sluggish.uni.cc/sentience/sentience.htm

He's running his own code, much of which is found on his code.google.com pages.

Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on October 13, 2008, 10:59:51 AM
> did you use roborealm or it is strictly all your code?
no, I wrote all the code myself, from the low level USB comms and camera capture routines to the exploration strategy, including the stereo vision engine

> where did you get the higher quality optics from?
you can get the optics from here if you reside in the UK or from a similar electronics store elsewhere in the world
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=19631
it's the wide angle lense (150 deg)
if you also get this particular model of Logitech webcams
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-Quickcam-Messenger-camera-colour/dp/B000JK8RWY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1223916932&sr=8-1
then it's simply a matter of unscrewing the original optics and screwing in the new lense
Unfortunately, due to the small imaging sensor of the Logitech webcam and after correcting the considerable barrel distortion from the wide angle lense,
the effective FOV is reduced to only about 90 deg, which is still not too bad actually

Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: andd64 on October 14, 2008, 12:29:10 PM
The webcam link (amazon one) has a model number of 961608-0914.  I live in Canada, and the ones i found have a model number of 961608-0403 (e.g http://www.ca.buy.com/prod/Logitech_QuickCam_Messenger_Webcam_Black_CMOS_USB_White_Box/q/loc/59573/202989027.html).  Will this be a problem to change the lens to a 2.1 mm wide angle lens?  Or would I have to get the same model number as yours?
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on October 15, 2008, 02:24:47 AM
I think you should be ok with that one. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that you also need to remove the infra red filter (it's a square piece of reddish glass) from the back of the original optics and glue it to the new optics. I haven't tried it but if you leave it out you may be able to end up with a sort of an infra red camera :)
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: Admin on October 19, 2008, 05:23:14 AM
Quote
I haven't tried it but if you leave it out you may be able to end up with a sort of an infra red camera
Not really, because it doesn't remove visible light from the image. It'll be an infrared cam at nighttime however :P
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: popayseaman on October 20, 2008, 05:54:30 AM
> Not really, because it doesn't remove visible light from the image. It'll be an infrared cam at nighttime however
yep, it will be a strictly night-time robot then :D
Title: Re: simple navigation with stereo vision
Post by: thomasWong on February 20, 2009, 06:43:09 PM
That is great job !!. Do u mind to post your source code ?