Sat, 13 Feb 2010
miniSVS - a reduced footprint version of the SVS Blackfin stereo vision system
In response to a request from the GMU RoboPatriots for a more compact version of the SVS to fit their RoboCup robots, we shrunk the original SVS layout from 6" x 2.5" to 4" x 2.5" (100mm x 63mm). The new camera spacing is 2.25" (55mm), though for the RoboPatriots, the spacing isn't an issue, as they are running ribbon cables from Blackfin to cameras mounted elsewhere on the robot.
We are calling the new board the "miniSVS". In shrinking the board, we removed some functionality that the soccerbots didn't need, including FAN8200 H-bridge, antenna mount, laser pointer drivers, and SPI interconnect. In place of the SPI interconnect, we are using a pair of GPIO lines with a soft UART driver.
The basic assumption was that this board would be used with other motor drivers with serial or servo interface, though perhaps this configuration would be attractive to existing SRV-1 robot users. If that turns out to be the case and there is sufficient interest, we can look at adding back the H-bridge and laser drivers.
As with the full-sized SVS, the miniSVS does include interfaces to 8 timers (4 on each Blackfin) with 5V power and servo headers, along with low battery detect circuit.
Those who are interested in the miniSVS or variations should send us an email, and we will consider adding this to our standard product list.
Posted Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:02 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Tue, 09 Feb 2010SRV-1 / SVS Blackfin HTTP functionality extended to support most SRV_protocol robot control functions -
The latest version of SRV-1 / SVS Blackfin firmware adds most of the SRV_protocol functions to the HTTP interface, enabling more complete robot control via a standard or mobile web browser. Motor control functions are provided for the existing SRV-1q PWM, the new SRV-4WD controller, as well as RC ESC controllers such as Sabertooth and pan/tilt servo interfaces.
Camera resolution and JPEG quality can now be set via HTTP. Also supported are the SRV-NAV gps, a/d, tilt and compass interfaces, generic I2C devices, SRV-1 vision processing functions, and laser pointer controls.
Using the SRV-1 HTTP interface is really simple. To test these, you can point your browser to
http://robot-ip:10001/robot.cgi?____
where ____ represents the SRV_protocol function, e.g.
http://robot-ip:10001/robot.cgi?V
will display the firmware version string
As before,
http://robot-ip:10001/robot.jpg
will capture a new JPEG frame. We have also provided a simple webcam script using this capability.
Surveyor Robot Forum discussion with additional details is found here - http://www.surveyor.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1265742063. Example code for a simple webcam interface is provided.
The new firmware has been posted to http://code.google.com/p/surveyor-srv1-firmware/
Posted Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:27 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Thu, 28 Jan 2010RoboPatriots humanoid soccer players for RoboCup using Surveyor SVS Blackfin -
The Autonomous Robotics Laboratory of George Mason University has fielded a team, RoboPatriots, for the RoboCup humanoid league, a prestigious international autonomous robotic soccer competition. RoboPatriots is one of only two teams from the USA that competed in the RoboCup humanoid league in 2009 (of 24 teams overall). The team is small and has never received any outside funding, so one of their goals is to present an inexpensive and robust robot platform that still competes well. In comparison, their competitor's robots generally cost 4-5 times as much.
As the team prepares for next year's competition in Singapore, they are developing tools for humanoid motion and path planning, vision-based localization, and multiple-robot coordination, as well as physical simulation software. The Surveyor SVS (stereo vision system) has proven to be a critical part of their robot architecture, acting as the brains and eyes of the robots.
2010 Robot Specs:
- Team Name: RoboPatriots (Johnny 5, Newton, and Stephanie)
- Height: 53 cm
- Weight: 900 grams
- DOF: 18 (5 DOF per leg, 3 DOF per arm, 2 DOF neck)
- Motors: Arms and Legs (16): Kondo KRS-2555HV digital servos
- Motors: Neck (2): Kondo KRS-788HV ICS Digital Servos
- Computing Unit: RCB-4 from Kondo
- Camera: Surveyor SVS stereo vision system, 640x480 resolution per camera, two 500 MHz Blackfin processors
- Sensors: (1) RAS-2 dual-axis accelerometer from Kondo (2) KRG-3 single axis gyro from Kondo
- Walking Speed: 25 cm/s
Posted Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:40 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Mon, 18 Jan 2010Inertia Labs introduces Renegade SRV all-terrain robot -
Our manufacturing partner Inertia Labs has just introduced an up-scale version of the original SRV-1 Blackfin robot, intended for larger payloads and outdoor operation, but still based on SRV-1 Blackfin and SVS control electronics. The Renegade SRV employs four high-quality planetary gear motors with encoders to directly drive the five inch rock crawling wheels. The chassis is laser cut and bent .125" 6061 aircraft aluminum with an ABS impact plastic lid. Surveyor has designed a custom speed controller for this chassis that also takes the input from each motor encoder and direct support for Sharp IR range sensors.
Technical details and order information are found here - Renegade SRV.
Posted Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:25 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Sat, 16 Jan 2010New blob tracking display feature added to SRV-1 Blackfin firmware -
Don't know why we didn't add this sooner, but latest version of SRV-1 firmware now includes a display function for blob tracking results. The console command 'g6#' enables display of boxes outlining the results of vblob() function, where '#' is the color bin for the blob search, e.g. g63 displays the blobs matching color bin #3. 'gx' turns off the blob overlay.
Forum discussion is found here.
Posted Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:32 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Mon, 04 Jan 2010Large treaded robot with SRV-1 Blackfin controller -
Inertia Labs has developed a upscale version of the SRV-1 Blackfin robot with a beautifully integrated camera tilt mechanism. Other than the larger motor controllers, this is basically a standard SRV-1 controller setup. For more information, contact Inertia Labs
Posted Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:50 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Tue, 22 Dec 2009Solution for Surveyor SRV-1 via iPhone (also EDGE) -
EWE Software has added SRV-1 robot control via iPhone or iPod Touch to their Befree4iPhone remote control program. The software is a freeware, downloaded from www.ewe-software.com/download.html, and it requires no iPhone modification or iPhone market download.
Further discussion of the Befree4iPhone is found on the Surveyor Robotics Forum.
Posted Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:53 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Tue, 08 Dec 2009Excellent tutorial on the Surveyor SVS (stereo vision system)
AForge.NET is an open source C# framework with SRV-1 and SVS Blackfin support that was designed for developers and researchers in the fields of computer vision and artificial intelligence - image processing, neural networks, genetic algorithms, machine learning, robotics, etc. We first described AForge.NET SRV-1 and SVS support here -
http://www.surveyor.com/cgi-bin/robot_journal.cgi/2009/11/05#238.
Since that post, the AForge.NET developers have written an excellent introduction to SVS, describing system setup along with a guide and sample code to create C# applications which control the board remotely, interface to servos, ultrasonic ranging, I2C devices and motor control. The tutorial is found here -
http://www.aforgenet.com/articles/svs_start/
Posted Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:02 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Thu, 03 Dec 2009Bat-tek Project
Bat-teK is a Carnegie Mellon + Lockheed Martin project that uses a lot of Surveyor's robotic technologies, including the YARB blimp, SVS, and SRV-1 robot, along with CMU's console applications and mapping technology. CMU produced this very cool promotional video for the project.
Posted Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:35 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Mon, 30 Nov 2009First production SRV-4WD motor controllers shipped to test sites
We have sorted out the assembly issues with our first batch of production SRV-4WD motor controllers, so we shipped a couple of boards to test sites today.
Most of the first boards have been committed to new robots being built by Inertia Labs -
but we will be building another batch of boards before the end of December and will soon set pricing / availability. If interested, drop an email to support@surveyor.com.
Posted Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:43 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Mon, 16 Nov 2009TUlip humanoid soccer robot with Surveyor SVS Blackfin (stereo vision system)
We just received these videos from Team EINDroid Humanoid Robotics of the 3TU, a cooperation of the Netherlands technical universities of Eindhoven, Delft & Twente.
The team is using the Surveyor SVS for color tracking via blob detection with one of their humanoid soccer robots. This is a very interesting and challenging problem, and we look forward to their continued progress.
Posted Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:58 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Sat, 14 Nov 2009Web-based "Admin" interface for SRV-1 Blackfin & SVS robot controllers
Extending the direct web interface to SRV-1 Blackfin and SVS we recently introduced, we have added direct support of HTTP POST methods for uploads of firmware, html pages, picoC scripts, etc, to the SRV-1 / SVS firmware. Those familiar with our existing firmware & file upload mechanism using XMODEM with Teraterm, lsz, etc, will recognize this as a significant enhancement.
Here is an example of the browser interface after selecting the srv1.ldr firmware image to upload:
and the browser display after upload has completed:
As with the web-based interface to the robot controls, no special console software is required - only a browser. Thus far, we have successfully tested with Firefox, Internet Explorer 8, Chrome and Safari, including iPhone and Google Android phone browsers. This capability is included in the latest version of SRV-1 / SVS firmware posted to code.google.com.
Beyond the file upload capability, we will be looking at ways to employ HTTP POST functionality for other functions such as robot configuration (selection of sensors, motor drive mechanism), image calibration (lens rectification, color range selection), neural net specification, etc. We have just started to explore the possibilities.
Posted Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:46 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Thu, 05 Nov 2009New C# framework for machine vision and robotics adds support for Surveyor SRV-1 and SVS Blackfin systems
AForge.NET is a C# framework designed for developers and researchers in the fields of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence - image processing, neural networks, genetic algorithms, fuzzy systems, machine learning, robotics, etc. The latest release, version 2.1.0, has introduced support for the SRV-1 Blackfin and SVS (stereo vision system).
Several sample applications are provided for the SRV-1 and SVS. The following screenshot demonstrates usage of AForge.Robotics.Surveyor namespace to control Surveyor's SRV-1 Blackfin robot. The application allows receiving video feed from the robot and manipulate it by driving the robot using predefined commands or using direct motor control.
The following demonstrates AForge.Robotics.Surveyor for control Surveyor's Stereo Vision System. The application allows receiving video feeds from both cameras, show stereo anaglyph images and manipulate robot by driving it using predefined commands or using direct motor control.
AForge.NET is extensively documented and well worth investigating.
Posted Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:33 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Sat, 24 Oct 2009Feature article on Surveyor SVS (stereo vision system) in Nov/Dec Robot Magazine
The latest issue of Robot Magazine has an excellent in-depth five page review of the Surveyor SVS, starting on page 30.
The author, Harry Mueller, explores many of the capabilities and limitations of the system in its current form, including stereo correspondence, neural net, picoC, RoboRealm, and other features. As Harry notes, "The SRV-1 and its most recent incarnation, the SVS, can best be characterized as a very sophisticated and evolving toolkit for vision experimentation". His conclusions are right on the money as well, though you will have to read the article to find out what he wrote.
Posted Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:04 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...
Wed, 14 Oct 2009New tool for SRV-1 Blackfin color blob searches
There is a new C library for AVR processors called "WebbotLib" that has added support for the SRV-1 Blackfin camera as an alternative to CMUcam. In the process of adding the SRV-1 support, the developer realized that we had no good tools for analyzing and selecting colors used for blob searches, so he wrote a new Java-based console, as described here.
This console is particularly useful for identifying colors and color bin ranges that will be used in blob searches. As seen above, I worked out a color range for the "red" of a spool of wire, and the actual blob outlines are displayed. The console is designed to work with serial rather than network interfaces, as this is the typical configuration for the SRV-1 Blackfin camera when connecting to an AVR-class processor.
Note that WebbotLib is an open source project - sourceforge.net/projects/webbotavrclib
Posted Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:54 | HTML Link | see additional stories ...