Camera issue with crazyflie-ar-detector

[PierreD]

Hi everybody !

A week ago I started working with Crazyflie AR Detector.
I succeeded in making it working : I'm able to detect the marker and to send set-points to the crazyflie.

But I'm facing a huge problem : when the crazyflie move, the program can't detect it. Because of that, the quad crash almost instantly.

I'm studying the possibility to use another detection method, but I wonder if it would work better with different camera.

At the moment, I'm using a Microsoft vx2000 webcam. You can find the data sheet here : https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/e ... am-vx-2000
Basically this webcam can do 640*480 @ 30FPS with a FOV of 55°.

But during movements, the image is blurred. THis is why the tracking is lost.
So maybe a different camera could be great.

I know that a while ago, the bitcraze team was working with a playstaion eye. (But I don't know if they succeeded!)
The playstation eye can perform 640*480 @ 60FPS with a FOV of 75°.
And more importantly, it only costs 10€!

Do you think that this camera could be a solution?

[PierreD]

I finally bought the PS3 camera and well, it's really better than my previous webcam!

It's quite hard to configure the camera and you have to do it again each time want to use it because of the different light.
But at the end I was able to make the crazyflie hover autonomously and keep its position for something like a minute.

So yeah, if you need a camera to do some image processing, the PS3 one is a good one.
Great framerate, great FOV.. And incredible price (especially when it's not a brand new one).

Of course there is a lot of better camera, but not at the same price.

[elsyx]

Blurry images can be caused by too long of a shutter speed which is a result of not enough light (not necessarily related to frame rate). I wonder if increasing the light available to the camera (i.e. having a brighter light illuminating the marker) would improve your results with the original webcam.

[PierreD]

Even with the highest shutter speed possible, I had still some motion blur (and I needed sooo much light)!
It's because my camera was really crappy.

Now with the PS3 EYE it's better but I still need a lot of light so it's pretty difficult to setup everything each time I want to use it.

As Arnaud said to me, it would be interesting to use the LED ring as a markers because it produces its own light! So even with a high shutter speed, its still possible to detect the lights.