VideoFollower Project
The aim of this web-site is to show the development and design of an electronic device implementing video tracking.
The project was assigned during the course of “ICT Laboratory”, taught by professor Riccardo Bernardini at the first year of the Master's degree in Electronic Engineering, at the University of Udine.
The course assigns to a team of students a project of an electronic device to implement. The assignment is executed completely autonomously by the students, the professor being requested only for advice or for seeking the material for the realization of the prototype. The aim of the course is, insofar as working methods are concerned, to serve as an occasion to cooperate and share the workload, deal together with the complications that spring therein, and gain pratical experience from the endevors to implement the assignment.
Assignment description
The final project must comply with the following requirements:
- Acquire the video stream from the camera.
- Identify a single detail inside the image, it being an object, a person, etc.
- Follow said detail in such a way that it is always framed by means of a movement control method.
- Whereas several identical details were present, the device must follow the one defined by the user.
The choice of the means to employ, in terms of hardware and software, was completely up the team, and considered part of the crasftmanship in the project realization.
Block diagram
The system is made up of a control unit which acquires a video stream from a webcam and returns a movement command to the actuators, as well as the reproduction of the streaming. Software performs processing on video and control of the servos, the former being carried out by a general purpose personal computer and the latter by means of an electronic programmable board, in order to obtain independent control.
Project development
The realization of the project consisted of the following steps:
