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Tue, 01 Jul 2008
Some thoughts about a stereo version of SRV-1 Blackfin Camera

There has been an active discussion on the Surveyor Robotic Forum about the possibility of a stereo version of the SRV-1 Blackfin Camera - http://www.surveyor.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1210703461. It looks like we will be moving ahead with this project and welcome comments on the design (to be published in Eagle 5 PCB format).

Here is a mockup of the stereo board set created by setting 3 existing SRV-1 radio boards side-by-side. I believe this is pretty close to how the final layout will look.



The dimensions seem reasonable - overall board size will be 6" x 2.5" (155 x 65mm), with the lens centers separated approximately 4.5" (115mm). Here are some current thoughts on the design:
  • maintain the current mounting pattern (1" x 2") in the center section, but maybe add some mounting holes under the cameras
  • provide a mounting hole for the wifi antenna
  • possibly provide an H-bridge motor drive and a pair of transistor drivers from each camera, duplicating the existing radio/motor control functions
  • define a different 32-pin header to bring out signals from both cameras and possibly the Matchport
  • interconnect the two cameras via SPI and GPIO. Also, camera #1 will connect to Matchport serial channel 1 (port 10001), and camera #2 will connect to Matchport serial channel 2 (port 10002).
  • add a 5V regulator for driving servos (e.g. pan/tilt)
As soon as the new Eagle 5 arrives (maybe today), we will start working on this. The main question will be how to allocate signals to the board's expansion header.

Part of the concept is to design this as a drop-in replacement for the existing SRV-1 controller, so users who already have the SRV-1 Blackfin can use their existing Blackfin camera and Matchport and will need only an additional Blackfin camera along with the stereo board. For new users, a complete stereo camera setup with both cameras and Wifi will probably cost in the ballpark of $550.

Posted Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:00 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...