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follow uv paint
Sverker from Sweden [4 posts] |
14 year
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I´m wondering if there is a possibilty to track a line of uv paint.
What i want to do is paint a line with invisible uv paint. Then put a uv light on it to shine up (mounted on the robot) that makes it glow so the robot can follow the path that lights up.
What kind of products am i looking for?
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Anonymous |
14 year
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Sverker,
We've not tried that before but a quick search in google brings up several invisible UV paints that you could purchase ...although I'm not sure how transparent they would be. I.e. if you are thinking that the paint will be completely invisible you may want to check how thick the paint needs to be applied in order for it to work correctly. Plus, I'm not sure what happens when you shine a UV light on the paint while direct visible light is present. I would not expect the paint the glow in the same manner as during complete darkness ... but if this is a nighttime robot then you have a good chance that things will work out.
STeven.
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Sverker from Sweden [4 posts] |
14 year
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If there is issues with uv color. Is there any other color or tracer you would suggest that will give a clear line independent of the surface. (not normal paint.)
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Anonymous |
14 year
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Sverker,
I'm not sure that I would give up so quickly on uv paint ... it is worth a try but nevertheless an experiment since we don't have any experience with that. Mostly we use black or colored electrical tape which seems to be a standard when it comes to line following types of applications.
Other materials have been more what the surface already provides, i.e. think of following a crack which is a form of a line ... or at least an edge that can be picked up.
What is your application? Perhaps if you mention a little more about the environment that you are working with that might help with recommendations.
STeven.
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Sverker from Sweden [4 posts] |
14 year
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When we harvest cucumbers here we have a motorized platform.
(Check http://www.maprosystems.com/anvandningsomraden.html)
I want to make this vechicle autosteer. My thought is that i take a spraycan and draw a line that the machine will follow and i can concentrate on the plants. The best is if the line is invisible, it doesn´t look good with a lot of paint in the fields.
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Anonymous |
14 year
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Sverker,
Very cool project! Thanks for the information. That really helps.
I agree in that visible paint would not look very good ... and would probably wear off after a while due to rain, wind, etc. I think another way to do this would be to rely on the lanes of plants instead using a type of vanishing point to determine the straight line through the fields. I assume this would be visible from the harvesting machine either along the tire tracks or dead center? Could you perhaps take a picture from the perspective of the harvesting machine where the camera would be mounted looking out onto the field? The idea would be to maximize the perspective the lanes of plants would cause. This may be the most reliable way to correctly steer the harvester.
Note that this would fail towards the ends of a lane .. but perhaps taking back control at that point would be ok? Especially when you would need to turn the machine around for the next lane.
An image will help to test our perspective theory and if not at least give us some additional clues as to that might work.
STeven.
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Anonymous |
14 year
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ie. something like this perhaps?
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Sverker from Sweden [4 posts] |
14 year
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Yes thats exactly how it will look from the camera point of view.
Maybe the next thing is to get the hardware and start testing.
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