FAST: Fully Autonomous Sentry Turret ECE 4007 L01 DK6 Dr. David Keezer Patrick Croom, Kevin Neas, Anthony Ogidi, Joleon Pettway Pat ECE 4007 L01 DK6

FAST Overview Fully Autonomous Sentry Turret – area denial gun turret with integral IFF capabilities Improve security, reduce unnecessary casualties, and reduce operational costs Intended for US Department of Defense, other armed federal organizations, and licensed private security companies $2500 component cost; $200,000 prototype development Pat Don’t forget to mention that this system is uniquely usable indoors unlike any other systems Barbed wire, landmines, live troops… ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Design Objectives Once activated, this system will operate without user interaction Uses visual monitoring to detect significant sources of movement Rapidly engages targets while avoiding designated friendly personnel Easy to use, portable, and low cost Pat ECE 4007 L01 DK6

System Block Diagram Digital Video (USB) Notebook Computer Webcam USB Azimuth Servo Voltage Data Phidget Control Board Pat DC Voltage Power Supply Altitude Servo ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Turret Configuration Stand Dimensions: 2’x2’x2’Feet ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Mechanical Turret Will consist of: Phidget servo controller A pair of HiTec Servomotors Pan and Tilt servo mount Mounted laser pointer Kevin ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Motion Tracking Interface Joleon ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Motion Tracking Algorithm Save Current Frame Save Next Frame Detect Differences Start Locate rectangle around connecting edges Send coordinates to servo motors Mark largest rectangle and its center on video Joleon ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Target Differentiation Identify Friend/Foe (IFF) Capability Identity determined by color of uniforms Sample color around aim-point Compare to predetermined “safe” color spectrum Color Spectrum Example: Safe Color: Red Color Range Accepted as “Red”: R: 235-255; G: 0-50; B: 0-50 Kevin ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Problem #1: Target Acquisition Rate Motion Tracking software currently exhibits a delay between image capture and target identification Acquisition time needs to be fast enough to prevent targets from bypassing the turret Kevin ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Target Acquisition Rate Solutions Reduce Image Resolution Improve Simple Compression Algorithm Filter and sort motion sources based on relative size Employ a more powerful central processor Kevin Already does basic sort by size, could change function to only return largest… ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Problem #2: Target Differentiation Current software converts images to grayscale IFF code may decrease run speed Color sampling locations may not be consistent Tony ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Preliminary Acceptance Testing Tony ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Project Schedule 3/29/10 – Basic Servo Control functional 4/05/10 – Total System Integration 4/19/10 – IFF Operational 4/26/10 – Prototype Complete Tony ECE 4007 L01 DK6

Conclusions FAST – Revolutionary New Defense Technology Reliable Basic Design Functional Motion Tracking Problems: Acquisition Rate Target Differentiation Questions? Tony ECE 4007 L01 DK6