I'm driving Eddie and worried about the Kinect
So after driving Eddie around with the XBox controller I'm a little concerned. I'll admit that I'm not nearly as adept at the thumbstick as my son. And I might blame it somewhat on the ramp-down parameters in the service in the Eddie manifest.
That being said, I'm driving on a flat and level surface (my basement floor) and starting/stopping actions are amplified by the lever action of the Kinect support and really shake the Kinect quite a bit. It was designed to sit, immobile, on the top of a TV and the insubstantial connection point between the Kinect and the Kinect base just isn't up to the task.
Are others worried about this?
I'm thinking about building a cradle that elevates the Kinect so that the base isn't touching anything (I can't modify the Kinect hardware) to provide a more substantial point of attachment. This would also alleviate the restriction:
"Your code should not make calls to change the camera angle more than once per second or more than 15 times in any 20-second period. Warning You should tilt the Kinect sensor as few times as possible, to minimize wear on the camera and to minimize tilting time. The camera motor is not designed for constant or repetitive movement, and attempts to use it that way may cause degradation of motor function. This Beta SDK limits the rate at which applications can tilt the sensor, to protect the Kinect hardware. If the application tries to tilt the sensor too frequently, the runtime imposes a short lockout period during which any further calls return an error code. "
Probably add a full pan,tilt mechanism so that Eddie could pan to acquire a tracked skeleton, then move appropriately.
That being said, I'm driving on a flat and level surface (my basement floor) and starting/stopping actions are amplified by the lever action of the Kinect support and really shake the Kinect quite a bit. It was designed to sit, immobile, on the top of a TV and the insubstantial connection point between the Kinect and the Kinect base just isn't up to the task.
Are others worried about this?
I'm thinking about building a cradle that elevates the Kinect so that the base isn't touching anything (I can't modify the Kinect hardware) to provide a more substantial point of attachment. This would also alleviate the restriction:
"Your code should not make calls to change the camera angle more than once per second or more than 15 times in any 20-second period. Warning You should tilt the Kinect sensor as few times as possible, to minimize wear on the camera and to minimize tilting time. The camera motor is not designed for constant or repetitive movement, and attempts to use it that way may cause degradation of motor function. This Beta SDK limits the rate at which applications can tilt the sensor, to protect the Kinect hardware. If the application tries to tilt the sensor too frequently, the runtime imposes a short lockout period during which any further calls return an error code. "
Probably add a full pan,tilt mechanism so that Eddie could pan to acquire a tracked skeleton, then move appropriately.
Comments
I have built an EDDIE clone along the lines of the Norris Lab's K-See: http://www.norrislabs.com/
I have my Kinect mounted on a 2" dia PVC pipe similar to the K-See and it is quite sturdy. However my EDDIE/K-See clone is a two deck robot that is equipped with three 12v 7amp/hr batteries (one on the bottom plate and two on the top plate) and therefore has a fair amount of inerita.
As far as the Kinect tilt issue, Norris Labs has mounted the Kinect on a Lynmotion servo base rotate kit to provide a pan function. However the Norris Labs design still relies on the Kinect tilt motor and has cautioned about excessive tilt movement.
Regards,
TCIII
I watched the video of that Norris Lab linked to in another post and it shows perfectly how unstable the Kinect is. One of the manuals warns about jarring the Kinect as it is easily knocked out of alignment (although probably more of an issue if you were overlaying depth/skeletal over RGB). I have coding to do, but I think I should fix the stability issue before I kill the kinect.
Todd
Todd,
Was it this video or another video perhaps? http://www.find.botmag.com/031205
The Kinect on the Norris Labs K-See looks reasonably stable and mine is mounted in the same fashion.
Regards,
TCIII
I understand your concern about the Kinect sensor. We're looking into ways to stabilize the sensor without compromising the tilting mechanism.
One solution that we've seen at Microsoft is to put foam between the Kinect and mounting plate. It reduces the jittering that you're seeing, yet still allows the Kinect to be tilted.
Cheers,
Jessica
Thanks for the reply. Damping the movement with foam is a good idea, I'll give that a try. Late last night (too late to really investigate) I saw an entry in one of the C# files in the ReferencePlatform2011 service group that had an entry for acceleration ramping with a value of 5. However, I didn't see one for deceleration so possibly it is just a generic for acceleration (both positive and negative). I'm going to do some more testing and see if the Kinect shake is when Eddie starts, stops, or both.
Todd .
Thanks for the pipe foam suggestion and the photo. I was digging around in my old foam collection from RC plane days and couldn't really find anything suitable.
Todd