F16: Wireless Tilt Controlled Camera Arm
Contents
Grading Criteria
- How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
- How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
- Code Quality
- Overall Report Quality:
- Software Block Diagrams
- Hardware Block Diagrams
- Schematic Quality
- Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.
Wireless Tilt Controlled Camera Arm
Abstract
For this camera system, the camera moves along a track according to user’s controls. The controller, which will be one of the SJOne boards, will control the direction of movement of the camera along the track. The camera will be mounted on a track and will be connected to the second SJOne board. The camera’s movement speed is set. However, the camera’s direction will be determined by the angle in which the controller is tilted. The camera’s tilt speed will be tracked using the attached SJOne board’s accelerometer and used in the movement of the camera’s vision. Similar to the movement of the human eye, the camera in this camera system will be able see 180 degrees in all directions in forward vision. The camera can look at an angle in any direction such as left, right, up, and down. The camera can be stopped or turned off by pressing a button on the controller. If the controller is tilted 90 degrees vertically, then the camera will start moving in that tilted direction. If there is an error, the user can press a button on the controller that will stop receiving accelerometer data from the controller board and the camera will reset back to the center position of the track and the camera will be back to facing the correct orientation. Data is transferred through wireless communication between the two SJOne boards.
Objectives & Introduction
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Team Members & Responsibilities
- Kevin Lai
- Acceleration Sensor and Wireless Communication Software Developer
- Document Writer
- Alex Reyna
- Arm and Track Designer, and Motor Driving Software Developer
- Document Writer
Schedule
| Week# | Start Date | End Date | Task | Status | Actual Completion Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10/8 | 10/14 | Write Project Proposal | Completed | 10/14 |
| 2 | 10/14 | 10/21 | Finalize Project Design | Completed | 10/21 |
| 3 | 10/21 | 10/28 | Research and Determine Necessary Components | Completed | 10/28 |
| 4 | 10/28 | 11/11 | Purchase Parts | Completed | 11/15 |
| 5 | 11/11 | 11/18 | Generate Schematics and Begin Prototyping | Completed | 11/18 |
| 6 | 11/18 | 11/25 | Program First Microcontroller to Act as Wireless Remote Controller of Camera Arm | Completed | 11/23 |
| 7 | 11/25 | 12/2 | Create Movable Camera Arm | Completed | 12/9 |
| 8 | 12/2 | 12/9 | Program Second Microcontroller to Interface with the Camera Arm | Completed | 12/16 |
| 9 | 12/9 | 12/16 | Perform Final Tests, Generate Final Report, and Prepare for Demo | Completed | 12/19 |
Parts List & Cost
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| Part Name | Model Number | Quantity | Cost (Total) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microcontroller | SJOne Board | 2 | $160 | One for Main Wireless Controller and One for Camera Motion Controller |
| 2.4GHz 6dBi Indoor Omni-directional Antenna | Antenna | 2 | $9 | Used for wireless communications between the boards |
| Osoyoo Micro Servo Motor | SG90 | 10 | $20 | Used for the motor control for the arm |
| High Torque Metal Gear Feather Servo Motor | HS-5065MG | 2 | $54 | Used for the motor control for the arm |
| 5V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator | S18V20F5 | 1 | $15 | Used for regulating power to the SJOne Board |
| 6V Step-Up/Step-Down Voltage Regulator | S18V20F6 | 1 | $15 | Used for regulating power to the motors |
Design & Implementation
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Hardware Design
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Hardware Interface
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Software Design
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Implementation
This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.
Board-to-Board Wireless Communication
The board-to-board wireless communication utilizes Nordic Wireless on the SJOne board. Initialization of the SJOne boards' wireless features was mostly handled by the default wireless task. For wireless communication, the wireless channel number used by both boards must be the same. The two boards used in this project each had their own wireless node address, which was used to uniquely identify each of the boards during the wireless communication. Two additional tasks were created to perform the intended operations needed in this project: one task for wireless data transmission and one task for wireless data reception. The main wireless controller performs the task that transmits data while the camera motion controller performs the task that receives data. The transmit task first interprets and uses the acceleration data captured by the SJOne board's acceleration sensor to generate the appropriate instructions to send to the camera motion controller. Then, after the instructions have been generated, the transmit task packages the instructions into a packet and sends the packet wirelessly to the other board. The receive task receives the wireless packet and unpackages the packet to obtain the instruction data. Then, the receive task uses the instruction data to control the movement of the motors.
Testing & Technical Challenges
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Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:
Wireless Stability
Initially, as we were testing the board-to-board wireless communication, packets would often be lost during the transmission. In order to resolve this issue, we reduced the air kbps rate down to provide a more stable signal. Although reducing the air kbps rate did reduce the loss of packets, the data transmission rate became much slower.
My Issue #2
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My Issue #3
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Conclusion
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Project Video
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Project Source Code
References
Acknowledgement
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References Used
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Appendix
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