New AI loaded USB Camera Module

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One of the recurring topics I see here is the use of AI for image recognition.

Part of the problem is that image recognition is processor intensive - even with a powerhouse processor and gobs of memory - there can be little time left for other processes.

Here’s one answer I saw in a SparkFun newsletter today:

The Luxonis Oak-1 AI camera.

This supposedly does all the AI on-board and returns results to your 'bot via USB.

Four things to note:

  • It does not mention in this brief article what format the results are in.
    (I am assuming there is some “standard” format understandable by ROS if nothing else.  Perhaps it can be used by Raspbian for Robots based 'bits like Carl?)

  • It’s in pre-order with a target delivery date around June.

  • It’s not trivially cheap at just about $150.

  • I don’t know if it can be used for any other kind of vision, (i.e.  plain-vanilla camera output).

Depending on how serious you are with AI and machine vision, you may find this interesting.

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It is a neat camera. I supported their Kickstarter campaign, but so far have only done a few of the tutorials.

They have another model the OAK-D that has a couple of extra lower resolution cameras explicitly for better depth detection (description here).

I want to be able to do outdoor navigation. As @cyclicalobsessive has noted, it would be good to be able to navigate w/o reliance on lidar. Cheap lidars aren’t really effective outdoors from what I understand. So being able to rely on other cues will be critical. I’m still a long way from there, but at least some interesting hardware is coming out. Both cameras would likely be too power hungry for the GoPiGo3 (the OAK-D needs a separate power input - laptop USB isn’t enough), but I don’t plan to run my GPG3 outside, so that’s OK. For outdoor navigation I also want to be able to run a GPS.

/K

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