Thursday, March 31, 2011

HaViMo Vision Module 1.5 for Bioloid

HaViMo is a Vision Module for Bioloid that gives the Robot the ability to detect multiple Colour BLOBs and navigate in familiar environments such as a Robocup football field or a maze autonomously. The module was developed by Berlin's Free University for the RoboCup humanoid robots of FU-Berlin, the “FUmanoids”, that won the 3 Place of the RoboCup 2007 Humanoid League in Atlanta.

Havimo V1.5 for Bioloid
The Vision Module includes a dedicated image processor capable of identifying up to 16 different color areas (BLOBs) that are pre configured by the user. For each BLOB the module maintains different parameters such as:
  • Color ID
  • Center Coordinate
  • Bounding box
  • number of pixels, etc.
The module enables a relatively low end processor such as an Atmega128 to receive simple digests of image interpretation that in turn can be used to direct the robot towards targets such as a ball or out of a labyrinth.

Highlights:

Lightweight integrated camera and image processor Controlled and queried via Dynamixel protocol (1 wire, half duplex, TTL UART) Simple and affective way to implement real time image processing and interpretation, based on color regions. Able to Acquire images and send them to a remote PC . Can even be connected to a simple microcontroller (ATMEGA, PIC, ...) and easily add the ability track objects.

HaViMo maintains a large table with about 50 parameters that some can be read and others can be read and written to. Using the Dynamixel serial protocol, the bus controller can ask HaViMo 8 times/sec to send back information regarding the state of the 16 contiguous-color-areas (stored logically in this addressable table).

Technical Details:
  • Frame rate: 8 FPS
  • Resolution: 160*120 color
  • Image noise filtering; Auto Exposure; Auto White Balance
  • Image processor: MagnaChip HV7131RP
  • (old HaViMos of version 1.0 - sold until May 31st 2009 - used a MagnaChip HV7131GP)
  • Built in color lookup table
  • Detection of up to 16 contiguous color regions at 8hz in the captured Image
  • Output Format: 256 bytes after processing of each frame, containing information about the found color regions on the image, including coordinates, dimensions,...
  • Communication Protocol: Dynamixel Standard Communication Protocol
  • Bus: One Wire TTL Bus (Interconnectable with AX-12+ servos on the Dynamixel Bus. A connector for the Dynamixel bus is mounted on board for easy assembly in the Bioloid Kit).
  • The HaViMo module can also be used with any other micro Processor that is capable of half duplex communication at 1Mbps.
(HaViMo 1.5 was designed for the Dynamixel bus which is a 1 wire, half duplex bus with a UART at TTL level).


Note: HaViMo Modules now come without the AX-12 case. They come as PCBs with holes strategically placed, to assemble it on the Bioloid Frames.