Robot Vision

[Commanderbob]

I want to start using a camera in my robots, however I am having a hard time finding one. I will be using an AVR32 with 32K of RAM. I don't need a high res camera as one image should fit in ~25K. I know SparkFun sells some cheap ones but looking on their forum people don't seem to have very good luck with them. I would like a simple camera, not a CMUcam. Mouser and Digikey don't sell anything like this.

What has been used? What works?
Thanks,
Justin

[benji]

oneday i wanted to do the same thing and i guess the gameboy black n white camera is a good way to start

[Commanderbob]

Thanks for the tip! I kinda wanted a color camera though. So I can track a colored object easily, or pick out a coke can.

[Commanderbob]

Been looking around and it looks like it is quite a challenge to get these things working.

How about http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl;jsessionid=0a010b421f432788cfc082ba4090a792b0e949d38c16.e3eSc38TaNqNe34Pa38Ta38SaN10?it=A&id=67&sc=8&category=241 it is the same camera the AVRcam uses. They managed to get an ATmega8 to read the camera AND do image processing! I don't know how because they only have 1K of RAM. You could note even store a single image.

The actually sensor can be found here http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cmucam/Downloads/ov6620DSLF.PDF

My main question is how can the AVR keep up? Does the camera have a built in buffer?

[Commanderbob]

http://www.robozes.com/inaki/dproject/
It has been done!

I am going to order a c3088 camera and try it with my AVR32.

[Admin]

http://www.societyofrobots.com/robot_faq.shtml#camera_microcontroller

[Commanderbob]

Thanks, but that is what I don't want. I want to connect to the camera directly, not though another microcontroller. You get better data rates with the parallel interface. The C3088 is an image sensor on a PCB with a lens. You get the parallel interface, smaller size, and lower costs. Also I don't was to use a computer or remote control.

Once I buy it and get it working I'll post how it went.