Kinect

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Xbox-360-Kinect-Standalone.png

  • Interface: USB 2.0
  • Power supply: 12 V / 1.08 A

Mounting the sensor on the youBot

The Kinect Sensor can be mounted on the youBot using the Universal Sensor Carrier. This sensor has no mounting points by default. But you can still mount it on the sensor carrier. Follow these steps:

Remove or cut the rubber layer at the corner of the base and unscrew the screws, which are under the rubber.

KinectRemoveRubber.jpg

There are 4 screws at the corners under the rubber layer

Replace the old screws with new ones, which are long enough to mount the sensor carrier together with the kinect's base, as shown below.

KinectOnCarrier.jpg 800px

Holes used

To mount the sensor on the sensor carrier, use the holes shown below.

Universal Sensor Carrier - Kinect.JPG

Powering the sensor

According to the specifications the sensor need 12 V / 1.08 A. The youBot doesn't have a 12 V Output, but it has a 24 V Output. Therefore you can :

  • use a DC / DC converter to convert the youBot 24 V Output to 12V. The DC / DC converter should supply 12 V and at least 18 W or
  • use a 12 V battery to power the sensor

If you also want to purchase a compatible plug for the 24 V Output, consider using a Neutrik NC3MX.

Software

Microsoft does not offer any drivers for Kinect, but there are two sources how to get drivers. The first one comes from an industry consortium OpenNI consisting of PrimeSense among others, who manufactures the underlying hardware of the Kinect. This consortium offers an open source middleware for ”Natural Interaction” devices, including support for the Kinect.

Further information on the driver can be found here:

   http://openni.org/
   http://www.ros.org/wiki/openni_kinect

The other source is the libfreenect. It is a reverse engineered driver by the OpenKinect project. libfreenect is a rather lightweight library to get access to depth and color images.

Kinect is not working correctly with internal PC

Problems when using Kinect and Asus Xtion (robot is working too slow, robot stop working after some time etc.) are usually caused by lack of computing resources.

In general the on-board computer is capable of working with this sensors, however, there are some limitations. Usually user have to think about optimization of the algorithm eg. using only certain parts of the information provided by sensor. It is also helpful to check libraries dependencies. Some of them needs for example CUDA technology to work properly so it is impossible to implement them on on-board computer.

To check youBot on-board computer pecification please visit YouBot detailed specification


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