Vision Controlled Nios Robot ViCoN-Bot™ Team Members Jeff Vickers (gte613i) Andre Moore (gt6875a) Kevin Walker (gte143x) K. Bosompem (gte616r) July 23, 2002 Georgia Institute of Technology School of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Overall Design Layout The overall design layout helped structure the design process: Phase 1: Research Phase 2: Nios & Camera Interface Phase 3: Robot ControlsPhase 4: Hardware & Power Design Phase 5: State Machine & Testing

Overall Nios Schematic

Overall Software Design Hierarchical structure of software implementation Including:  Global Header File  Nios Design File  LCD Module  Camera UART Interface  Servo Speed & Direction  State Machine

Pulse Width Modulation A oscilloscope screenshot of a 2 ms pulse train with a 20 ms period generated using VHDL and integrated onto the Nios Board A 2 ms pulse denotes full speed or right all the way

Pictures of the ViCoN-Bot

State Machine The state machine serves as a top level control to integrate all the ViCon-Bot functions Integrates the CMUcam, Nios board, and hummer

Tweaking the Color Ranges Testing was conducted in the CoC and colors had to be recalibrated to accommodate the variation in color Above is neon pink & green used to outline the track and denote when to negotiate a turn

Above are the final color ranges Both pink and green benefited greatly from recalibration New Color Measurements and Specifications

Track

Current Project Progress

Future Design Ideas Implement addition sensors to allow for more advanced movements: sonar, multiple cameras, etc. Improve state machine to include many different operations: follow an object, obstacle avoidance, search & destroy, etc. Add a voltage sensor to detect the state of the battery Design a swivel and tilt servo unit to pan the camera Increase the clock frequency in the PWM to provide more precise resolution for important settings (home position) Add a remote control for stopping robot manual at a distance Utilize the next CMUcam soon to be released (faster & high res) Tweak the camera interface to minimize propagation delays associated with serial communications in C & Nios Add more color ranges for more advance tracking modes Implement additional image processing Use faster Nios processor