[01 Sep'12] some-junk-notes

+ running a openCV program under GDB
+ seperation of project arch into different units
             -   servo handling unit(camera)
             -   driver unit(locomotion)
             -   image processing unit
             -   voice recognition unit.
             -   interaction interface unit                 
                   e.g: when we want to align the robot chase with camera,
                         we need servo & locomotion unit to interact.

+  Ques: orders are given obviously but can the orders be asked by slave.
     e.g:
         servo and stepper operate at different resolutions, so the solution is
             i. standardize the unit of measurement b/w them.
            ii. create a f/b loop, so that slave uC can query the android app to get
                the error with servo due to stepper movement

from all these one thing is clear calibration is the most important that is to be considered first.

+ and the project workflow should stick to the plan.

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[30 Aug'12] Tested BtBee

         Today we have tested the BtBee module that we bought from SimpleLabs (Chennai). We planned to demonstrate the voice recognition part of the application on coming monday.
         and here are something that came to my mind.

• we have decided to use stepper motors for driving the bot
• got to design the software design soon
• there is no user interface required 
• clean modularity is very important
• going to write segments of the programs as separate program, for testing and then integrate them accordingly
• image processing module gonna be the main thread. at a only one functionality is being run by the microcontroller. for example only the stepper functionality will be running until the bot reaches the proximity of the object to pickup
• voice recognition: trying to access the DSP of Android phone and using pocket sphinx for voice input.
• image processing thread
• acquire the image 
• find the object of interest 
• center the object in the pic. i.e move the camera so that the object comes to the center of the image.
• then accordingly align the wheels of the motor, so that it can go straight to the object
• take three/four snapshots at different point as the bot moves and use kinematics and some simple maths to find the size of the object
• can we use the ultrasonic range finder for measuring the distance between the bot and the object.
• move towards the object so that we can grab it.
• pick it up and return to the initial position where the command was given
• initially we have planned to use three servos for arm control and now we try to test with a single servo grabber.
• so everything gotta be highly modularized.
• the command are saved in command files

                         like
                         camera.upwards = CAM_UP
                         camera.left = CAM_LEFT
                         .....
                         etc..

• can we use GPS for tracing the path back? no GPS is power hungry and adds more complexity to the project.
• learn how to construct a delay circuit so that only one pin can be used to drive a stepper motor using four delay elements in series. you got it??

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Experiment with OpenCV

    We have started the process for making our project. Here is a demonstration, that I have done this evening. This video summarizes, a tutorial written in OpenCV doc.

   The program demonstrated loads and plays a video present in the current directory and provides a slider to position the current frame. Happy Coding !!!

You can read the original post on my blog

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Zeroth Review - Second attempt

   As the first entry into zeroth review was screwed due to the absense of a block diagram in the abstract, this week we were supposed to present our ideas. I got to thank two people, who supported our ideas and gave us a chance to attempt.
 

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