Robot, stereo vision, movement around and AForge

Question

I’m thinking about creating a little robot that will ride around, judge the distance to objects and avoid obstacles (I hope it will) - nothing complicated, just a home project of fun.

I plan to use two webcams to determine distances and track objects, and AForge.Net as a basis. I have never done any AI and robotics related, so I have no idea where to start.

What components do I need (wheels, engine, etc. that can be programmatically controlled, some kind of programmable controller?) And where can I get all this?

In general, where to start to make this happen? I am looking for a set of tools that will help solve basic problems and allow me to focus on programming my robot.

Answer 1

For a robot, if you do not have prior knowledge and know-how, I would recommend buying a turnkey solution such as Roomba.

Roomba (specific models) has a hack kit that allows you to program it. Plus, he will clean your floor when you are bored.

Also for the vision part, OpenCV is a good start.

Be warned that his project is “no” and “simple” you are traveling to

Answer 2

I think that, considering that this is your first time working with a robot, a turnkey solution will be the best for you. The mechanical and electronic design of the robot is at least taxed as part of the AI, so if you want to start working with the AI, perhaps a ready-made solution of the robot will help you to take effect;)

I think Lego Mindstorms is a great place to start. That's right for Martin Beckett's image processing, OpenCV sounds like this :)

Good luck and feel free to let me know if you need more help or suggestions.

Answer 3

Since you have no previous experience, you can try Lego Mindstorms programmable robotics.

Personally, I think this is a complex project, although fascinating; -)

Answer 4

I think Roboard looks very nice and easy to use (can do any promises where I don't own one, though). It is equipped with a 1 GHz processor, I2C, SPI (for additional peripherals), PWM (for servomotors), A / D (for your accelerometer and Sharp IR rangefinders :), USB host signals for your cheap webcams and a mini- slot PCI for customize your WLAN card! Apparently he has a library to use it all. A netbook / laptop or gumstix is ​​likely to do its best.

Add batteries, two motors with integrated quadrature sensors and an easy-to-use motor driver and voila!

Phidgets contains many easy-to-use sensors, drivers, etc. Also check out SparkFun.

Of course, you will probably get a lot more hits on the dollar if you get iRobot Create and just put your netbook / laptop on top of it.

Answer 5

I would think roomba is a great introductory robot to use. As mentioned above, all the mechanics and electronics were made for you, and all you have to do is just provide it with additional sensors and more.

If it were my project, and since you would like to use some Internet cameras, I would probably go with several cameras and a wireless router. Connected to a wireless router, I would also connect an ethernet-based microcontroller that could send serial commands.

There are several other robotic devices that I would recommend - for example, a washable lego, but I think roomba will have a lot of “real” for you. With multiple cameras and a router / microcontroller and maybe some batteries out there, you will need some powerful power to pull it all out.

One thing to keep in mind is what you want to do to process the video. Video processing is really interesting. I made some videos myself, and when you delve into this, it becomes quite complicated, but useful when you can make it work :). In any case - keep in mind that when processing video you will have a “delay” in the time when the camera writes something to the program, when you see it — when your algorithm can decide what to do.

In addition to the video, I would probably also have several other sensors on the device. I would probably use an ultrasonic sensor. They can detect fairly close distances (2-15 feet) and are likely to be good for use with your project. There are several more sensors in the room that you can use (touch, step, etc.), but then again, indeed, any set of robots works well there.

If you are looking for a super basic way to get a great introductory look into the world of robotics - I would even go so far as to mention the BASIC stamp, but it is very limited and you cannot do much more than super-basic ones (without interruptions, etc.)