Fabricate a sort of home radar/tracking system

[polka129]

a friend and i plan to design and fabricate a sort of home radar/tracking system.the objective goes like this.there is a dark room and we are flying a remote controlled helicopter(a small one).it is desired that a radar/tracking system placed on the floor should track it,follow it and hit it with ping pong balls.now how to go about.we need to keeep this whole thing as simple as it could be.


we had an idea.make a hexagonal mirror drum.which rotates both in the vertical plane and the horizontal plane.360 degrees in the vertical and about 30-40 in the horizontal.rotation achieved by servo motors/stepper etc..

.we will position a laser beam and focus it on this rotating drum.this will scatter the laser rays in the whole room.any random ray striking the helicopter will illuminate it and a camera fitted on the rotating drum will lock the target,follow it.the rotation should stop now.and the feedback signal to a micro controller will do the analysis and fire the balls.gear trains needed..calculation of gear ratios needed.etc.what do u say?how credibile is dis?.got any other idea.please help me with an embodiment.thank u.

 

[Sciurus]

Hi, polka129.

The simplest way I can think to do this would be to put a camera with a wide angle lens on the floor and light the room with a typical light, then use helicopter's color versus background color to distinguish it from the background, and determine its elevation and azimuth. Are you required to have a dark room and use a laser? Your method might work, but it's going to take some extra work, I think.

 

[polka129]

hello scierius..thanks for the reply...actually the objective is not to do all this in a room but in an open sky.imagine this tracking system on the ground floor and we fly a remote controlled helicopter from the balcony 3-4 km above the ground...this is the objective..now the problem is with sky.it isn't 2 or 3 dimensional...its spatial...the helicopter can either fly EXACTLY above the tracker straight horizontally or can take any path...the tracker should,i say,illluminate quite a big space above it with reflected laser rays..of course it will have a maximum range...do u know of any software which can simulate this for us?..flash like software..where we make a rotating hexagonal mirror.(rotation both in horizontal and vertical) and we focus a laser beam on it..(this laser beam is placed on the bed hosting the mirror,this bed rotates in the horizontal plane and the mirror mounted on it rotates about the central axis.)..so that we can get an idea...and then we can get down to the calculations...

 

[Sciurus]

Hi, polka129. I think I understand the rotating platform and laser now. I don't quite know what you're asking for in terms of software, but I have the assumption that the tracking mechanism is to find the azimuth (heading) and elevation above the horizon of the helicopter. I'm curious about what information the pedestal will give to the computer so the computer can calculate these values.

 

[Sciurus]

I suppose if the "weapon" is mounted on the pedestal as well, azimuth wouldn't be necessary. Or will be weapon be stationary?

 

[Unrest]

It seems like the whole rotating drum thing doesn't serve any purpose. It's not a dark room when there's laser beams scanning everywhere! If you can tolerate that much light then just use a stationary floodlight, a stationary camera, and a movable gun controlled by the software that recognizes movement in the camera image.

Recognizing movement is probably a much easier software task than distinguishing a helicopter from a painting on the wall, which you would need to do in your system.

It could all be done with IR light instead of visible. Have you considered sound, either from the helicopter or like a sonar?

 

[polka129]

thanks for the kind consideration sceius...
the camera will not b mounted on the rotating head..it will b placed somewhere near this system...but it will be facing(viewing) only the field/space ILLUMINATED by the scattered laser rays..much like a cone u c...the vertex is the origin of the rays(the rotating head in this case) and the extreme ends of the diamater(at the top) the maximum range of the illuminated space.if the copter intrudes that space/field...the camera will track it..record it and follow it...dat is still a later consideration of the design...the preliminary thing is the dynamic/mechanical design of this rotating system...

please gimme ur id..i m searching for mechanisms in my engineering dynamics books closest to our desires

 

[polka129]

hello unrest...thnx for the reply ..

actually the objective is not to do all this in a room but in an open sky(the room saga was just to give u a raw idea of wat is the whole design about)

.imagine this tracking system on the ground floor and we fly a remote controlled helicopter from the balcony 3-4 km above the ground...this is the objective..now the problem is with sky.it isn't 2 or 3 dimensional...its spatial...the helicopter can either fly EXACTLY above the tracker straight horizontally or can take any path...the tracker should,i say,illluminate quite a big space above it with reflected laser rays..of course it will have a maximum range...do u know of any software which can simulate this for us?..flash like software..where we make a rotating hexagonal mirror.(rotation both in horizontal and vertical) and we focus a laser beam on it..(this laser beam is placed on the bed hosting the mirror,this bed rotates in the horizontal plane and the mirror mounted on it rotates about the central axis.)..so that we can get an idea...and then we can get down to the calculations...


the camera will not b mounted on the rotating head..it will b placed somewhere near this system...but it will be facing(viewing) only the field/space ILLUMINATED by the scattered laser rays..much like a cone u c...the vertex is the origin of the rays(the rotating head in this case) and the extreme ends of the diamater(at the top) the maximum range of the illuminated space.if the copter intrudes that space/field...the camera will track it..record it and follow it...dat is still a later consideration of the design...the preliminary thing is the dynamic/mechanical design of this rotating system...

 

[Mech_Engineer]

So you optical tracking in the dark, why not infrared? Then you can avoid the laser beams altogether.

 

[Sciurus]

Mounting the camera off platform will make wiring easier. I think I'm still foggy on some details, but if it works out in your mind, it'll probably work out.

I did a tracking project back in high school, but it was more computer-centric and didn't involve moving parts. I don't know if you are able to write software, you might still need a little for your design; I'm not sure.

Well, good luck.

(I'm not sure which ID you're talking about.)

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Keep in mind also that tracking in 3-D space will require more than one camera. 2 would be a minimum (binocular vision), 3 might be better for triangulation.