Robot, stereo vision, driving around and AForge

Question

I am thinking about building a small robot that will drive around, judge distance to objects and avoid obstacles (hopefully it will) - nothing complex, just a home fun project.

I am planning on using two webcams to decide distances and track objects, and AForge.Net as the framework. I have never done anything AI and robotics related, so I have no idea where to start.

What sort of components would I need (wheels and engine, etc., that can be programmatically manipulated, programmable controller of some sort?) and where do I get all this stuff?

Overall, where do I start with this to make it happen? I am looking for a set of tools that would solve the basic problems and allow me to concentrate on programming of my robot.

Answer 1

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/opencv

Answer 2

Since you have no prior experience, you could try Lego Mindstorms programmable robotics.

Personally, I think this is a complex project, though fascinating ;-)

Answer 3

Hi!

I think given this is your first time working with a robot, an out-of-the-box solution will be the best for you. The mechanical and electronical design of a robot is at least as taxing as the AI part, so if you want to start into the AI part, probably a premade robot solution will help you getting right into the action ;)

I think a Lego Mindstorms would be a great place to start. For the image processing, Martin Beckett has it right, OpenCV sounds the way to go :)

Good luck, and feel free to message me if you need further help or suggestions.

Answer 4

I think the Roboard looks really nice and easy to use (can make any promises there as I don't own one, though). It packs a 1 GHz CPU, I2C, SPI (for extra peripherals), PWM (for servos), A/D (for your accelerometer and Sharp IR rangefingers :), USB host signals for your cheapo webcams and a mini-PCI slot to fit your WLAN card into! Apparently it comes with a library to use all that stuff too. A netbook/laptop or gumstix would probably do fine as well.

Add batteries, two motors with integrated quadrature encoders and a easy-to-use motor driver and voila!

Phidgets stock a lot of easy to use sensor, drivers etc. Check out SparkFun as well.

Of course you probably get a lot more bang for the buck if you get an iRobot Create and just stick your netbook/laptop on top of it.

Answer 5

For the robot if you don't have prior knowledge and know-how I'd recommend to buy a premade solution such as the Roomba.

The Roomba (certain models) comes with a hacking kit that will allow you to program it. Plus it will clean your floor when you are bored.

Also for the vision part, OpenCV is a good start.

Be warned that its not and "easy" project you are journeying in