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Surveyor SRV-1 Room Video
(3.6 MB) Video of the SRV-1 from an overview perspective as it roams around the room.
(338 KB) Video of what the robot sees while navigating around the maze. It is very jumpy since
the video stops streaming during the motor moves which are very noticeable when turning.
Problems
It is worth pointing out some of the failures that we experienced during the creating of this
tutorial. As one can learn much from mistakes we chose to share some of the issues.
1. The video image size for processing is 80x64. While this is sufficient for wall avoidance a higher frame rate
would be desired in order to increase the speed of the robot. We achieved about 4 fps while running
the robot within the room. The wireless transmission
does add in some delays which can causes the robot "blindspots" during a move. With increased
wireless speed the robot would receive more frequent updates from the PC and thus could move in a more
reliable and faster way.
2. There are still times that the robot can become stuck within the room. Since we are using
a black painted metallic floor (to ensure the wall magnets stick) the robot has a tendency
to slip when rotating. This slippage can cause the robot to unintentionally backup into a wall if it is
close to it while turning.
3. We did not factor in any noise suppression for the wall detection. Adding a mean or gaussian filter would
soften the image and provide a less noisy line detection. This would allow the robot to more confidently
approach a wall without turning too soon.
Your turn ...
Want to try this yourself?
Download the Surveyor Maze robofile to run the example yourself.
Clicking on any of the modules will bring up that module's interface and allow you to
customize it for your needs.
Conclusion
We are extremely happy with the Surveyor SRV-1. It is a nicely built platform that is just fun to
work with largely due to its small size. The battery lasts longer than most of the other vision platforms
we have experimented with. The small size and weight allows us to experiment with it in confined
environments so setup is quicker and less costly. The form factor also allows us to check motor
and sensor values while actually holding the robot so a raised testing mount is not needed. Please
see the Surveyor Website for more information on how to purchase this little wonder!
The End
That's all folks. We hope you've enjoyed this little adventure into an application of machine vision processing
and have inspired you to download a free trial of our software.
If you have any questions or comments about this tutorial please feel free to
contact us.
Have a nice day!
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