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Subject: 
Re: Navigation using landmarks (Was: Re: lasers and RCX)
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Sat, 29 Jun 2002 22:28:10 GMT
Original-From: 
Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net(Spamcake)>
Reply-To: 
SJBAKER1@AIRMAILavoidspam.NET
Viewed: 
610 times
  
PeterBalch wrote:
Message text written by INTERNET:sjbaker1@airmail.net


I was wondering whether one of those new fancy optical mice which use a
tiny camera to watch the motion of your desktop might be adapted with a
suitable lens to track the motion of a robot.

What a good idea.

<blush>

Does anyone know how they work and where to get the chips?

Well, where you get the chips is you pull apart a mouse these mice are pretty
cheap these days.  The software and control logic is all inside the mouse - they
don't have any special drivers in the PC.  Hence, the protocol is the usual mouse
protocol that's well documented all over the web.

How they work - well, I can only presume that they are watching an image
of the desktop under the mouse and doing some kind of signal processing
to derive the speed and direction of motion.  This is confirmed by the
fact that these things don't work on very smooth, plain-coloured surfaces,
and expecially on very reflective surfaces (where the mouse tries to track
an image of it's own underside!).

Dunno how accurate they are - in their intended application, they can
mis-estimate the mouse speed considerably and still work well.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
Mail : <sjbaker1@airmail.net>   WorkMail: <sjbaker@link.com>
URLs : http://www.sjbaker.org
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        http://toobular.sf.net   http://lodestone.sf.net



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: Navigation using landmarks (Was: Re: lasers and RCX)
 
(...) So, according to the Agilent Technologies web site, these sensors are tiny cameras that take 1,500 pictures per second (!) - they claim 400 'clicks' per inch at speeds up to 12 inches per second. That seems pretty good for a robot - there (...) (22 years ago, 30-Jun-02, to lugnet.robotics)
  Re: Navigation using landmarks (Was: Re: lasers and RCX)
 
I'm certain that the optics need to be insanely close to the surface they are monitoring, causing a clearance problem. If such a device was hacked, would placing it in the center of a synchro or Killough platform prove useless in a spin? Rob (...) (...) (22 years ago, 30-Jun-02, to lugnet.robotics)
  Re: Navigation using landmarks (Was: Re: lasers and RCX)
 
Just use the bottom half of the mouse, trimmed as much as possible, as a skid plate. It will need to be mounted to allow vertical movement, but it should work alright. This wouldn't solve the spin issue, but the clearance shouldn't be a problem. A (...) (22 years ago, 1-Jul-02, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Navigation using landmarks (Was: Re: lasers and RCX)
 
(...) tiny (...) suitable (...) What a good idea. Does anyone know how they work and where to get the chips? Peter (22 years ago, 29-Jun-02, to lugnet.robotics)

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