User:Medelen8/ENES100/Vision-Based Object Tracking Conceive

Idea
Using a simple camera to track a moving object. Vision -Based object tracking concept can be successfully used in various applications such as: Collision avoidance,driverless cars,video surveillance and so on.

Problem Statement
The focus on this second project is to conceive a system that uses a camera to precisely track a moving football that is coming from different angles and catch it with a net or a basket. We still have to decide at what  maximum distance the football should be thrown from the catcher and what maximum speed the football should be thrown at.

Market/Customer needs
The Tables on the right show the different surveys and the results for the product we picked and the estimated price The customer requested a few adjustments to the product like:

•	To catch the football far from a distance from where you throw it

•	To return the football back to you

•	To tell you different ways to improve your throws

•	To give you different settings where you can chose to give you more practice

•	To keep counting how many footballs you threw at the same spot

•	To keep track of how many have you thrown

•	To keep track of your speed of throwing the ball

•	To keep track of points

•	To give you tips for better aim

•	To have some setting where you can have it moving and you have to try to throw as close as you can to it and it will automatic catch it for you

•	To have different settings for different ages ( from 10 years to 50)

According to the surveys the customers suggested different prices that very close to each other and we took the average of all the surveys and we got an average of $303.38.

Factors that set the context of requirements
The Factors of the needs to change the product.

Enterprise goals and capabilities
As far as the Enterprise Goals and Capabilities are concerned, there is a real market potential for an Automatic Football Catcher:Football is among if not one of the most revered sports in the U.S.A and most of families here have single kid loving football; an Automatic Football Catcher will be a great playing partner for this kid who will not have to rely on another kid to play football at his convenience.This Project being part of the ENES100 here at HCC, the students working on this project will have the Engineering Lab at their disposition and the capital for this project is linked to Howard Community College. A success in the implementation of this project will certainly boost the image of HCC and a functional model of the Automatic Football catcher can be exposed at various Engineering Fairs.

Competitors and benchmarking information
Based on our extensive research on this subject, we could not find a similar concept or competitor for an Automatic Football Catcher We have not found any automatic catcher, but there is a manual catcher here is a link to a similar project to it http://www.unique-sports.com/sites/www.unique-sports.com/files/SLVDSCB_1.jpg

Ethical, social, environmental, legal and regulatory influences
After doing a lot of research we couldn't find any ethical,social, environmental, legal or regulatory influences concerns  about the Automatic Football Catcher.

System goals and requirements
According the survey that was given to about 58 people ( mostly college students and high school students), the Automatic Football Catcher should have the following requirements:

.     Ability of the Automatic Football Catcher to accurately track and catch a football thrown at an average speed of 20 mph from a distance of 15 yards away within 3 seconds.

•	To have the ability to catch different sizes of footballs, from sizes of 42" to 46".

•	To be to use by different ages from 10 years old to 55.

•	To be able to close into a size of 3 feet by 4 feet to be moved around.

•	To work with a minimum of 15 feet high and 20 width.

•	To be functional at 15 yards away from the person throwing the ball.

•	To be able to hold at least two footballs of sizes between 42" to 46".

.     The Automatic Football Catcher should withstand wind of about 20 mph.

•	The Football catcher should weight between 40-120 lbs so that it can be carried by a maximum of two people.

System performance metrics
Among those performance goals listed above, only the main one can be measured according to these metrics: -A football is thrown at an average speed of 20 mph from a 15 yards distance; the total time taken by the football from when it is thrown to the time when the net is deployed and the football is caught can be measured using a high precision stopwatch with an incertitude of +or - 2/100 second. The average should be taken from 5 throws to have a greater precision.

System concepts
We had Various concepts for the Automatic Football Catcher; it is true some concepts seem more realistic than others but the Pugh Concept decision Matrix helped us narrow down the viable ideas to three major. Here are the Concepts we had:

-Telescopic Net: A telescopic arm mounted with two cameras and having a net at its end can expand or contract to catch the football.

-Drone football catcher : A flying Drone equipped with cameras and grabbing arms can track and catch the football.

-3D moving football catcher

-2D moving football catcher

-Glowing football equipped with LED's

-Pivoting and collapsing net: A giant net equipped with 3 cameras that pivots around its axis and collapses on the football.

The Links for different concepts can be found below

-Football equipped with infrared emitters. 

File:Pivoting_and_Collapsing_Net.jpg|Pivoting and Collapsing Net File:Telescopic_Net.jpg|Telescopic Net File:Drone_football_catcher.jpg|Drone football catcher File:Motion_in_3D.jpg|Motion in 3 Dimensions File:2D_motion.jpg|Motion in 2Dimensions File:Glowing_ball.jpg|Glowing ball 

Trade-offs among concepts
There were many trade offs among the different concepts we had for the automatic football catcher. - To have a more realistic and more accurate football catcher, two cameras should be mounted on the top the net(catcher) to track the ball and the net should move in 3D( three dimensions: from left to right, up and down, back and forth). This approach requires a lot of equipment(powerful motors, more rails and batteries); the coast will exceed by far the maximum amount of money the College can allocate to the project. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Motion_in_3D.jpg -The cheapest option but less realistic is to limit the movement of the catcher in 2D( two dimensions; up and down and left to right).This approach will be similar to the" hockey table" and the only difference is that the catcher will lay vertically. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/2D_motion.jpg -To allow the catcher to track and catch the football more precisely, some LED's should be embedded in the ball along with the circuitry powering the LED's; also the football will be covered with fluorescent bands or stripes. The modified football will be then heavier and therefore less enjoyable for kids of a certain age( less than 10 year old). https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Glowing_ball.jpg

High level architectural form and structure
The system will be a combination of mechanical (gears, actuators..), electrical (sensors, cameras, motors) ,and software and hardware equipment (raspberry or arduino, code)



The decomposition of form into subsystems, assignment of functions to subsystems, and definition of interfaces
Being only is the conceive phase, we are certain that the main subsystem of The automatic football catcher will be centered around its processor(raspberry or arduino). This processor is going to receive signal ( information) from the Cameras, next the processor will send signal to the motors ( gears ,actuators...) and the sensors will send back infos to the processor for adjustment.

Modeling of System and Ensuring Goals Can Be Met
This step of the CDIO does not apply to the Automatic Football catcher: this project is not based on an existing project.

Project cost and schedule
Based on our first estimations, the total coast to conceive, to design and to prototype the Automatic Football Catcher could be around $250 for the various parts needed  and depending on the various adjustments that could be made to the prototype, the coast may rise to $325. Roughly 8 to 12 weeks are necessary,depending on the students work loads, to have the first prototype of the Automatic Football Catcher: 4 weeks for conceive step and 4 to 8 weeks for the Design Phase.

Estimation and allocation of resources
The maximum amount of money that can be allocated to this project by the College is about $500-600. Being in the conceive step of the project, no financial assistance is needed at this point and the resources should be redirected to the next steps of the project ( Design and Implement if necessary).

Risks and alternatives
This second project being only in the conceive phase, the success of the Automatic Football Catcher depends on this project going through the Design Phase. The practicability of this concept can be assessed during the Design Phase and the College can decide wether to further this Concept or not. The alternative would be to simply cease this project so that HCC does not waste any money on purchasing parts that might be needed to pre-test or prototype the Automatic Football Catcher.

Next Steps
The next steps of this project is to refine the conception and design an Automatic Football Catcher. Based on the great interest people we surveyed showed for this concept and the financial potential this product may have, we highly recommend that a Design Project be created based upon the Conceive portion of this project (Project 2 ). A good start would be to start with the design of a 2D moving Automatic football Catcher and then move to a 3D Automatic Football Catcher depending on how successful the 2D version was.