This week, we received feedback about our project proposal. Our design, technical and user requirements were deemed to be very detailed and our project was declared feasible. Luckily, we did not have to make any changes to the existing design of the system. All the parts were ordered and should arrive in the next few days.
While waiting for parts, we worked on the computer vision aspects of this project this week. We started learning the OpenCV C++ interface and were able to create a basic algorithm that masked out pixels outside of any given color range in the HSV space. Also, we were able to connect to the Intel RealSense camera and read data from the camera to use in the computer vision algorithm. As we continue to build this algorithm in the coming weeks, we anticipate facing the issue of the computer vision having to work in different lighting conditions. While this was an anticipated issue, we did not realize the degree of sensitivity light had on the image. We saw that the same objects in different lighting had very different colors. We are hoping that in the upcoming week, we can test this algorithm in outdoor lighting to see if the light is just as sensitive. If it is, then we might have to tweak the color parameters in the algorithm to make sure that light will not have much of an effect on the detection of tennis balls.
Schedule Update
Even though the parts were ordered slightly later than anticipated, due to all the hard work from the entire team, we are right on track or even slightly ahead of the planned schedule. This gives us a little more slack time for the upcoming weeks in case our parts arrive later than expected.