Cool Raspberry Pi Machine Vision Project (that I'll pay someone to do)

Electronics
#1

Hey All,

I’ve got a cool machine vision project that I think could be done on a Raspberry Pi. The project involves relatively simple machine vision and will be used to aid with sun-tracking on my solar panel (that mirror panel under the shelves on the back wall of the shop). Please see the description [here][1]. (links to a pdf in my google drive)

I’d love to do this project myself, but I just don’t have the time. Thus, I’m willing to pay someone else to do. If you’re interested, please send me a private message with a quote of how much you’d charge to complete the project (i.e. produce a working raspi + camera solution that has been tested on my solar panel), and how long you think it would take you. The project description also contains a “part 2”. You can ignore that.

Don’t hesitate to reply to this thread with questions. If you think someone you know might be interested, pass this along!

Thanks,
Arun
[1]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8v9dpuF13frOXRxczBrdlZOM0U/view?usp=sharing

1 Like
#2

I think that an RPi would be overkill for this, and you don’t need machine vision. You just need a sun-tracking circuit, with an adjustment for each mirror. I can think of a few ways to do this, though I’m not sure that any of them would meet your requirements.

As an example, the following video demonstrates a common and inexpensive method of sun-tracking. I’ve seen several variations on this idea:

#3

Pretty cool video. There are several reasons why this type of tracker will not work on my setup, the first of which is that my mirrors don’t actually point at the sun. They bisect the angle between the sun and the fixed target.

-Arun

#4

Four photocells on a pyramid & a simple bridge circuit will serve to locate the Sun, & from that bisecting the angle is child’s play.

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#5

Here’s one Sun tracker using an Arduino on Instructables.

#6

Thanks for the info. For anyone interested, the Raspi project offer is still open.
-Arun

#7

Might even play with ideas for a mechanical optical bisector and thus the tracking will be even easier.

Or . . . after looking at your document, program it to track the sun with no sensing whatsoever.

If you know where you are on the earth and which way is north, you should always know where the sun is. Get an arduino and get atomic clock info from the air or . . . use a GPS module to get location and exact time and then just assume the device is oriented correctly WRT the north direction or you could go nuts and put a digital compass on the unit then get true north from an internal map of magnetic variation assuming you know magnetic deviation . . . well . . . you get the idea.

#8

Did you end up using the Pi for your project? I am interested in starting up a project using machine vision as well so I’d be interesting in chatting if you’ve had any luck along that route.

Brad

#9

Did not end up pursuing this project.

#10

Did you end up learning about implementation of OpenCV in Raspberry Pi?