Student Projects
Contact Information
University: Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Team Members: Xintian Li (graduate in 2013), Xiaotian Shi(graduate in 2013), Chenglong Li(graduate in 2013), Chaohao Wu(graduate in 2013)
Faculty Advisers:Yongchang Ma
Email Address: lixintian0425@gmail.com
Submission Language: English
Project Information
Title:Earth Presentation System based on NI sbRIO, Kinect and Google Earth
Description:
In our presentation system, you can see a Google Earth in the LabVIEW front panel, and you can control it with easy gestures. Meanwhile, a Magnetic Levitation earth can rotate synchronously with the Google Earth. In another function mode, the maglev earth can control the action of Google Earth, and the Google Earth can rotate synchronously with the maglev earth.
Products
NI products: Single-Board RIO, LabVIEW 2012, LabVIEW Real Time module, LabVIEW FPGA module, LabVIEW Vision Development Module
Other hardware and software:Microsoft Kinect, NetGear Router, stepper motor, MEIZU MX2 smartphone, programs in Python language, Eclipse for Android app development
The Challenge
1. How to interact LabVIEW and Kinect.
2. The maglev earth rotation control algrithm.
3. How to get the real-time status of the maglev earth.
The Solution
Description:
The Kinect can capture people's gestures, and provide coordinates data to LabVIEW. We design some algrithms in the LabVIEW to process the data, and the LabVIEW can determine the gestures of people, and control the action of Google Earth.
The control algrithm runs in the cpu of sbRIO, and the FPGA serves as a I/0 to control the stepper motor, and control the rotation of maglev earth.
We develope a Android app, to use the camera to take real-time photos of maglev and transfer the image to pc by wifi. The LabVIEW process the image, and get the rotation status of maglev earth, so we can synchronize the Google Earth's status with maglav earth's status.
Function:
1. Gestures control of Google Earth: open arms, altitude increase, earth get smaller, close arms, altitude decrease, earth get bigger; wave arms, the earth will rotate or stop.
2. The maglev earth rotate synchonously with Google Earth.
3. Reverse control funcion mode: a smartphone transfer real-time images to pc, and LabVIEW process the images and synchonize the Google Earth with maglev earth.
Benefits from NI products:
1. Compatibilities: We are quite suprised to find that LabVIEW can interact so perfectly with other devices and programs, that we hardly met any problem of compabilities.
2. Easy to build the program and realize some complicated function: LabVIEW provides many function modules, which makes it very easy to build a complicated program and develope functions. With the help, we complete our project within 3 months, and we quickly turn our ideas into real system. Without LabVIEW, to complete same work, we probably need much more time and efforts to do so.
Level of Completion: fully functional.
Time to build: From early March of 2013, to the mid-May of 2013, about 70 days.
Front Panel of our project
The maglev earth
Reverse control, with smartphone and Android app
Video:
Because we have returned the NI sbRIO, so our project could not be running now. Therefore we upload the video used for the Chinese Virtual Instrument Competition, and add voice-over narration in English.
The below is the video and you can also watch the video by click here http://youtu.be/iOcXum8CsLA.
