> I've been learning to program the dsPIC series of microcontrollers over
> the
> last few months as a hobby, now I'd like to try and build a cheap and
> simple
> vision system for the robot I'm working on.
>
>
>
> Although I haven't actually compiled a parts list yet, I was thinking of
> using the parts (hopefully I can find them cheaply online) that the CMU
> Cams
> (www.cmucam.org) use.
>
>
>
> My question is, if I'm able to get the CCD camera sensor and lens, will a
> dsPIC be powerful enough to do the processing that the CMU Cam 3's NXP
> LPC2106 ARM7 cpu does?
>
> Thanks for the help!
>

I've got a system running with a CCD image sensor. I don't recall the
resolution right now (I'm just finishing vacation and haven't looked at
the design recently). But, I'm using a 24HJ256GP610 running at 40MIPS. I'm
"bit banging" the video out of the sensor (driving clock until the data
valid pin goes high, getting the data, driving the clock some more,
dropping in horizontal and vertical sync at the appropriate times, etc.).
I'm running the chip in "snap shot mode" where it captures the image, then
I shift it out, instead of the other mode where an image is captured as
the previous one is shifted out. In this application, the integration time
needs to be fixed, so I didn't want to bit bang during integration. I use
the PWM generator to generate clock during integration, then switch to bit
bang to get the data out. Most data was then sent to a display that has an
internal controller, so it did not need continuous updating. The display
parallel bus was also bit banged (set up data, strobe it, etc.). The
display is color and the sensor is monochrome, so I had to do a mono to
color conversion (simple formula). The product captures specific pixels
off the sensor for later analysis. The vast majority of the processor time
is spent getting the image and passing it through to the display (the
image is not stored). I'm getting about 12 frames per second. If you were
to use the non-snapshot mode, you could get double that. Then, of course,
stuff would slow down as additional processing is required.

You might look at the PIC32. My latest board layout will accept either the
PIC24H or a PIC32 in case I decide to move in that direction.

Good luck!

Harold


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