I am planning to use the color following ability and have it follow an IR LED strapped to my ankle.

Alan

Nice Alan. I was wondering how we were going to do that so when we meet up we can all have them following us around.

How about following sound? Have a Mic on front and one on back and it just follows the direction the audio is loudest. Sorta like a audio compass to follow you. Just a idea

@jstarne1, There is a control in ARC called sound movement that I think is for that, but if you put it on your project it says "not complete" or something similar. Probably something for the future (or the SDK if you can't wait).

Alan

Well maybe it will be a complete feature soon

thx for the nice ideas. problem is, that you cant use sound or visual sensors primary, if you want to build a stalking shoppingbasket ^^

Its too vulnerable to disturbances.

I cant imagine anything working, but some kind of radiowaves to let the robot know, in which direction and how far away you are. Anything else can be disturbed too easy. Can it not? Or can the EZ-camera recognice your back/side/face well enough? I dont know. I dotn have any experience in using cameras on robots yet. Sound/camera/visual signs can be used additional of course to improve it further.

I think the easiest solution could be, if you carry a transmitter on your body, which sends out an encoded signal, for example a bluetooth signal, so that the robot can use his 3 antennas, to measure the distance and angle to you and adapt it.

Maybe even an app for smartphones could be written, so that the bluetooth of the smartphone can be used for that.

That would be the most comfortable solution.

To differ bluetoothsignals it should have an individual key.

Maybe someone has such a solution at hand or there is even a ready solution on the market?

I was actually thinking of making up a T-shirt with a glyph on the back of it, as they can read glyphs. THen it would just focus on the glyph. I are not smart enough yet to figure out the whole transmitter thingy...

!Ilike the idea with the glyph on a t-shirt

That really can be used meanwhile You also could shave a glyph on the back of your head and the sides. The face can already be recogniced

How long you think it will take to figur the whole transmitter/bluetooth/wifi thingy out?

Can you recommend some good infomaterial to me? Here in Germany there are nearly no good books etc. about that stuff available. Probably to protect us from ourselves...

I need input. Inpuuuuut! ^^

Btw. Can 2 ez-cameras be used simultaneously to be more efficient? Is there maybe even support of 3d visuals?

stibaer. Only 1 camera with ARC right now. You could have additional cameras on the pc and probably find a way to communicate to them with the SDK.

Alan

Hey all,

Blue tooth or any RFID solution could certainly detect presence, but tracking is going to be very tough right now. You could use something like XaP automation protocol to do bluetooth presence detection but I have not yet seen a board that will give you a line of bearing (LOB) which requires Radio Direction finding (I have not looked alot however). RDF is pretty common on lots of hobby type boards for some lower frequencies like VHF band stuff, but I have not yet seen it for wifi and Bluetooth yet. There are some solutions probably based on signal strength on some of the wifi utilities, but I don't think it is that accurate. Maybe someone has seen something.....Would love to avoid shaving my head. I might consider a tattoo however (jk).

v/r

Kevin

I have a Mega Byte 2.0 Hound Droid that has a "follow me" function. If I recall it worked pretty well. It uses an Infra-red remote to control the dog's functions. I think the "follow me" mode just broadcasts or pings an IR signal from the remote, that you clipped to your belt, to the dog droid and it'd just home-in on the IR signal?

Granted, the robot won't find you in another room, but line-of-sight following was pretty good for a toy robot. Don't know if this would be possible with the EZ-B, but since we can already use IR ping sensors with the EZ-B might it also be possible to use IR detectors? confused

Any web cam can see an IR led without modification. DJ says if you set the color following to blue it will work. Haven't tried yet. It is on this week's to do list. With the SDK you could add only follow a specific blink pattern so it doesn't chase just any ir source.

Alan

The camera speed isn't quick enough to do a blink detection. Also, the priority is low on refresh and put towards detection. So your frame rate changes based on "real" activity, like movements and detection, etc. Frame rate and camera resolution isn't as important to the robot, it's merely esthetics for us

As for ir tracking with blue, it'll work. I'll do a tutorial video for you

That makes sense. Steady led it is.

Alan

I use a pair of infrared beacons ( see link ) one unit mounted on robot ,interface to Ez b ,connect batt to other unit hold in your hand or strap to you body and it will follow you or do what you want with a little programming. http://www.pololu.com/catalog/product/701

:) Pat

Why cant radio technology be used for the positioning? Would be the most efficient solution, since its the only solution, where you dont need a direct line of sight.

A Tracking transmitter broadcasting a radio signal which can be detected by a directional antenna (typically a Radio Direction Finder.) could be carried at your body.

By rotating the antenna on the robot, one can determine the direction the signal lies in and of course whatever it may be attached to. "

Also the strenght of the signal can be measured -> you have all needed data to let the robot drive in a certain distance and angle to you.

Source of information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking_transmitter

Just tried IR following with a universal remote, and it works great. I am going to take a small 1 LED bike light I have and replace the LED with an IR one so I can wear it on my wrist or ankle so the bot will follow me.

Alan

@thetechguru, Alan, do you just use the 'RED' color tracking on ARC for that?

v/r

Kevin

Kkeast, actually it sees it as blue (almost white.)