LMDS Gen.1
(Laser mosquito defence system)
Brief
LMDS, short for Laser Mosquito Defence System).
An instrument using Computer Vision to detect and locate mosquitos and automatically shoot them down using the laser. Inspired by a laser mosquito killer built by a Microsoft engineer.
This project makes me learn system-level programming at the computer vision region and start to manage a relatively large-scale project which Contains 1500+ lines of code in control, geometry transform and communication subject. It also require to design relatively complex embedded, signal and power system. These experience are very important to following project, which bring my engineering ability to a new level.
This project also has some shortages, some of them were fixed in LDMS Gen.2.
Story
This is the second representative work which is also the first time to treat as a project.
Before started developing, I found many professors and university students to discuss my project to make sure a solution is available. I made the study plan to study computer vision and more C++ programming because this time there’s no reference material. To learn more C++, I employ a CS university to teach me C++. I wrote the project document and log because the scale of this project cannot be held by the brain.
From project starting to start developing, I spend about a year to learn and prepare the material and knowledge.
For solving the distortion of the camera, I invented a calibrate method algorism which uses longitude and latitude against the barrel-type distortion of the camera.
I also use it to attend the science fair, of course, NO.1 without any doubt.
This project also reported by local media.
This project also have some flaws
- The program is a single thread, therefore shooting and object tracking are in the same loop, which causes the refresh rate to be low and makes this system can only shoot the static object.
- The camera and galvanometer are not on the same axis, therefore it requires re-calibrate every time while distance changes.
- The strong light of the laser spot shot on the object will make the object cannot be detected.
