Autonomous camera aiming & tracking module

xtracrispy said:
I think that the sum total of a decent camera, powerful with gpu embedded computer, and wireless transmitter will be a few hundred dollars.
Do you guys think a price somewhere between 500-1000 is reasonable, given the parts involved? That would place it about equivalent to the cost of a non-active gimbal.

I think hexo+ is a good reference for your project. For their KS backers, $299 for the flight controller only, $949 for the complete drone (without the camera).

Just a question/suggestion, is a decent smartphone(which has powerful GPU) fast enough to handle the visual processing you have done? If it is, I would imagine that it requires less hardware, as we can just plug a MAVLINK dongle to a phone which will receive the live video feed to let the app process it and send back the commands.
 
Hi

Really interesting, a couple of questions:

1. Where will the image processing take place ? On board the UAV, on the ground via a smaller streamed image ? Seems a lot of CPU task to pile onto the Phantom, and on the ground you don't have high res of fast frame rates. I take it the test was on much more powerful equipment.

2. How will it fair in a real world environment with changing light conditions. If you are using colour matching will that not be effected my the suns position.

Seems really interesting.

Huw
 
Yup. I am. I just uncrated my Phantom 2 and pulled the gopro hero 3+ out of the box. after a little air time with the Phantom 2 minus the gimbal and camera, I loaded them onto the phantom and started inquiring at DJI about how to configure for FPV. According to DJI, I still have a hefty investment to make in order to take aerial video.

I'm not a roboticist, but I'm an electrical engineer and I'd appreciate your views on how to proceed with tracking, programmed maneuvers, and gps-based flights.

best.
M
 
That's fine for when the camera is still and the object in question is moving.
When we discuss camera tracking with quads, we mean making the camera stay focused on the desired object regardless of where the bird is, or in what direction it is flying.

Let's say you have ground station and you want to fly your bird around a church steeple in a circle in autopilot mode.
The bird flies from point 1 to point 2 with the camera pointed in that direction. The camera never actually sees the steeple.
The trick is, without a panning gimble, how do you direct the bird at an angle so the camera is looking at the steeple while the bird flies from point 1 to point 2?

If you can figure that out, sell your work to DJI and make a small fortune.
 
Is this using the vision plus ? I feel the vision plus is limited as a tool as I like the idea that I can increase the range of my flying. I may be off here but I love that you get autonomous flight with the vision plus. Does anyone know of the module I need preferably non dji to do autonomous programmed flight using an addon. Im in the uk so I am using 2.6ghz TX and 5.8Ghz for the video.
I am guessing wifi is what is used for autonomous flight ?
 
That's fine for when the camera is still and the object in question is moving.
When we discuss camera tracking with quads, we mean making the camera stay focused on the desired object regardless of where the bird is, or in what direction it is flying.

Let's say you have ground station and you want to fly your bird around a church steeple in a circle in autopilot mode.
The bird flies from point 1 to point 2 with the camera pointed in that direction. The camera never actually sees the steeple.
The trick is, without a panning gimble, how do you direct the bird at an angle so the camera is looking at the steeple while the bird flies from point 1 to point 2?

If you can figure that out, sell your work to DJI and make a small fortune.
Controlling the yaw is effectively the same as panning a gimbal ? So its like a 360 pan shot I did while running course lock. The phantom flies its straight line course lock path and you put the left stick full over the phantom pirouettes beautifully while doing this straight line. What the OP suggests I think is getting the feedback from the camera to input this pan control while on a course.
 

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