pic tracking oject

Hi,
I was wondering if there was an easy way to track something with a
laser and a pic. I need to follow an object with a laser which will be
moving quite fast, say 20 mph. I would like to use a pic to do this.
what sort of sensors do I need

Thanks

 

[Sylvain Munaut]

rfwebb@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,
I was wondering if there was an easy way to track something with a
laser and a pic. I need to follow an object with a laser which will be
moving quite fast, say 20 mph. I would like to use a pic to do this.
what sort of sensors do I need

Thanks

Can you put a transmitter on the moving object so that the objet sends
its position ?

Tracking an object that doesn't have some kind of device (active or
passive) on it and doesn't follow a predictable path isn't in a PIC
capability.


Sylvain

 

[Roger Hamlett]

<rfwebb@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1124824012.000361.91150@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Hi,
I was wondering if there was an easy way to track something with a
laser and a pic. I need to follow an object with a laser which will be
moving quite fast, say 20 mph. I would like to use a pic to do this.
what sort of sensors do I need

Thanks
It is very hard, unless there is something to make the object extra

visible. I did such a thing about 20 years ago, using a retroreflector
mounted on the target, and a IR laser. There was a hardware gimbal system,
which swung the beam in a classic 'line scan' pattern, and then the point
with the strongest return was received, was then used as the centre of the
next scan. The controlling processor for this, was a 4MHz Z80, and the
same sort of approach could be handled by a PIC. Without the extra
hardware to give a visible 'point', and to handle the scanning, the task
is perhaps 1000* harder, and would require significant image processing,
of the sort that the PIC is not really capable of handling.

Best Wishes

 

Ok so I cančt really put a transmitter on the moving object so do I
need to use a camera. If this is the case what sort of processor would
I need to do the image processing ?

Thanks

 

[Donald]

rfwebb@gmail.com wrote:

Ok so I cančt really put a transmitter on the moving object so do I
need to use a camera. If this is the case what sort of processor would
I need to do the image processing ?

Thanks

P4

 

[Matthias Melcher]

rfwebb@gmail.com wrote:

Hi,
I was wondering if there was an easy way to track something with a
laser and a pic. I need to follow an object with a laser which will be
moving quite fast, say 20 mph. I would like to use a pic to do this.
what sort of sensors do I need

If your camera can follow it and the red dot is significantly brighter
that the rest of the image, all you need to do is take the luminanz (Y)
signal and the sync signals. There are specific chips to extract those
signals from FBAS/Composite video signals, but it is also easy to do in
discrete components. Now wait for the vertical sync signal, then start
counting the horizontal syncs, and the cycles from the horizinatl sync
until you find the bright dot. The number of HSyncs and the cycles from
the last HSync give you the Y and X position of your dot.