Computer Science Honours Research
Integrating Real-time Image Processing
into Rapid Prototype Robotics
Conducted by Jean-Clive 'JC' Bailey
Supervised by James Connan
Development
Plot Clock Beta
Construction
Using screws and 40T gears, the Beta PlotClock addresses the crippling instability and inaccuracy problems that was faced by the Alpha version, with the drawback of slower movements and noisier servo. However, the initial manual control test (as seen above) show cases a smoother arm movement, with a little tinkering I should be able to ascertain motor rotation to gear angles and thus reprogram the Alpha's base code to work with the Beta without too much recoding.
Some results
With the arms now in place. I did some stability testing, the resulting setup makes the lines much more straight and easier to control. With a little refinement, the Beta chassis was used directly for the final iteration: The Theta version.
Plot Clock Theta
The final system video
The system uses a wbecam to read a live image feed, finds the clock face, analyze the time and then output the reulsting time to the Plot Clock to draw. See Chapter 3 in the final thesis for a complete explanation.
