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Pan/tilt camera (Read 3146 times)
kike123
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Pan/tilt camera
01/10/08 at 8:33am
 
Anyone have recommendations on how to incorporate pan and/or tilt capabilities to the  robot's camera?
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #1 - 01/11/08 at 12:27pm
 
Either you need to be able to move the entire board assembly, or you need an flexible extension cable from the Blackfin board to the camera.  There are a couple of spare PWM outputs that share pins with UART1 that could be used to drive servos, but finding a suitable extension cable is the main challenge.  I'm not certain what the cable length limits would be, but 2-3 inches would probably work okay.
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osmogr
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #2 - 02/02/08 at 7:14pm
 
Since the new release of the firmware, I have been looking to setup my p/t for the camera.. I am using some pc ribbons cables that I hacked up and I will be testing next week.
 
Ill post some pictures if things work out ok..
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Sean Hyde
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #3 - 05/05/08 at 8:37pm
 
Quote from osmogr on 02/02/08 at 7:14pm:
Since the new release of the firmware, I have been looking to setup my p/t for the camera.. I am using some pc ribbons cables that I hacked up and I will be testing next week.

Ill post some pictures if things work out ok..

 
I'd be very curious how this worked out as I will be attempting a similar thing soon as well.  My idea was to just move the whole board assembly (as it will fit on the pan/tilt) but I may change my mind.  I'll also have to look into the specifics of accessing those two other PWM channels.
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-Sean Hyde
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #4 - 05/05/08 at 8:45pm
 
Quote from Sean Hyde on 05/05/08 at 8:37pm:

I'd be very curious how this worked out as I will be attempting a similar thing soon as well. My idea was to just move the whole board assembly (as it will fit on the pan/tilt) but I may change my mind. I'll also have to look into the specifics of accessing those two other PWM channels.

That's the approach used here -  
    http://www.societyofrobots.com/robot_ERP.shtml
 
The other 2 PWM channels are accessed via the 's' command - see the command descriptions at
    http://www.surveyor.com/blackfin/SRV_protocol_bf.html
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Sean Hyde
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #5 - 05/08/08 at 6:45pm
 
The 's' command will allow us to set the position, but not increment it (like the '+' and '-' commands).  I can either adapt the firmware for these new commands (I'll really need 4 for pan and tilt), but then I would ideally want to capture the response from the robot indicating what position they are currently at.  The other option is to somehow (I'll brush up on my javascript) keep the current position values on the client machine: the buttons increment and decrement these values and then the full 'sXX' command to the SRV.
 
The latter seems easier, but somehow more of a hack.
 
Along the lines of pan/tilt, what is the easiest way (in your opinion) of accessing this S32 bus?  I could solder directly to the board, but I'm just checking to see if there's a better way.
 
I wish my servos had come today (Servocity got an annoyed email for taking >8 days to deliver on 3 day shipping), but they didn't so testing won't happen until at least this weekend or next week.
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-Sean Hyde
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #6 - 05/08/08 at 7:32pm
 
Right - there aren't any trim commands for the second set of PWM/PPM outputs.  You might create a couple of sliders that generate absolute position.
 
It's probably easiest just to solder to the S-32 pins at the bottom of the motor board.  We have a version of the motor board with extended pins, but it doesn't fit the robot very well.
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wmcnab
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #7 - 05/09/08 at 7:47pm
 
I used a pan & tilt assembly to move the entire camera using the other two channels and it works quite well.
 
If you're interested,  this is a link to a short video I took of the P&T in operation:
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T66qmsbo_0
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Sean Hyde
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Re: Pan/tilt camera
Reply #8 - 05/10/08 at 9:55pm
 
I played around with the javascript and html this weekend.
 
I've eliminated some of the buttons I wasn't using and added pan and tilt buttons to the webpage gui.  I also added some javascript to make the buttons control the pan and tilt and read out the current positions to the gui.  
 
It is a bit messy, but I plan to go back and and change it later.  I think I will end up putting this functionality directly into the firmware instead of in the gui eventually.
 
As my servos are taking their sweet time arriving, I haven't tested this code, but it is sending the commands to the SRV-1.
 
If anyone is curious, I've placed all the files I changed at: http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~seanh/srv/ and you're welcome to take a look.
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-Sean Hyde
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Carnegie Mellon University
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