Fully Autonomous Sentry w/Target Anticipation

[David08]

Re: Fully Autonomous Sentry w/Target Anticipation

cfinger - is your camera mounted to the barrel or is it fixed? If fixed, how are you determining the range to the target to figure out the correct angle? Or do you assume it's a level field? I know a lot of teams had trouble calibrating the firing position to where the camera was looking.

Kallahar

i'll answer that since it's so simple. it's mounted to the frame of the tripod (it's real obvious in the video). range is not determined (it's not really necessary). since his camera is not centered on the X axis he has to calibrate it for a certain distance. the farther a target is (whether closer or farther away) from that initial calibration distance the farther off the aiming is (but not by much). also, elevation is not an issue. the same characteristics that apply to the X axis also are evident in the Y axis.

[Wesson357]

Re: Fully Autonomous Sentry w/Target Anticipation

Yeah, so originally we just used motion to track targets. There are 2 reasons to use color AND motion-

1- Teams. Red vs. Blue. So it can be part of the game to advance up to the turret, switch its team, and turn it towards your enemy.

2- If it works solely off motion, what happens when the wind blows, trees start to move, grass moves, everything is moving! So with our software (you can actually see this in the video) even when all that tall grass is moving in the wind, the system can ignore that and focus on one target. Same thing w/ color - you can see red train cars in our video, which aren't being shot at.

Computer Vision people know the biggest, and arguably the hardest, part of the system is making it work in all situations. We have simulation software set up so that we can record hours of video in all different situations, come back to our shop and find the best parameters that will work universally. THAT is something that takes time and a lot of patience- the more you tailor it to one situation, the more you screw up the other situations.

Now the other reason to use color, is to have atleast some wiggle room in the liability department. There is less of a chance of hitting an innocent bystander- still a chance, but less. Just don't wear red or blue :)

Thanks for the information :)