Published May 14, 2017

Tracking TV Stand

The Tracking TV Stand uses a Walabot to angle a monitor in the optimal angle for viewing depending on the audience in the field of view.

AdvancedFull instructions provided4 hours3,121

Best of United States

Walabot - Power to the Makers

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B

Walabot Developer Pack

Unitek USB3.0 4-Port Hub

Power Sonic Model PS-640 F1 6 Volt 4.5 AmpHr Battery Supply

Servos (Tower Pro MG996R)

Personally modified Futaba S3003 for continuous rotation. If using a different brand of servo research the number of spline teeth for your attachment of the Servo Spline Gear.

Servo Spline Gear

32 Pitch 25T 12 Teeth (Acetyl). After testing, it appears that metal would be the best material for the gears.

Plain Bore Gear with Hub

32 Pitch 48 Teeth (Acetyl). After testing, it appears that metal would be the best material for the gears.

Computer Monitor

This additional monitor will be placed on the turntable and rotate on the TV stand. Its size is for the Technical Demonstration.

M5X30 Bolt and Nut

OpenBuilds Nylon Spacer

M5X6mm

OpenBuilds Delrin V Wheel Kit

The exact parts are not these, but they are very similar.

Software apps and online services

Sublime Text

Or any other generic text editor.

Hand tools and fabrication machines

3D Printer (generic)

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

The Idea

Developing a Walabot as a tool for construction and healthcare applications is a worthy contribution to society, which is why most ideas involve these two industries, but I saw the opportunity to break from the mold of standard submissions. A tracking TV stand can increase the quality of life and the standards of tailoring entertainment to an individual and group's needs. For this reason, I developed a technical demonstration of the tracking TV stand.

Description

This project is intended to develop Walabot's impact in the entertainment sector.

The tracking TV stand will use a Walabot device as the means to monitor activity in front of it. Any display can have tracking with the help of the Walabot. Homes, shopping centers, restaurants and bars all will have more immersing television viewing with the Walabot.

The Walabot will be mounted on the stand facing the viewing area to capture the environment and people in it. Using the radio frequency technology, the Walabot will track individuals' movements and respond by moving the TV to allow everyone to have great views! Whether it is in a shopping mall display to give passing customers the best view or at a house party to tailor to the guests, the Walabot is the perfect device for the task!

Use

The Walabot will work in tandem with a motor to rotate a monitor to give the audience the best view possible.

Audience Tracking: The Walabot will track the concentration of individuals in view of the TV. It will determine the optimal angle to position the TV based on where the audience is across the viewing area.

Individual Tracking: The Walabot will motion track individuals in the viewing area to give them the best view as they move around the environment.

All tracking will be done at a continuous rate to match the changing environment, which makes the Walabot perfect for this project.

The Project

Design the Parts

The design for a tracking TV stand is relatively simple. A rotating turn table on which the TV sits is attached on the vertical axis to the stationary stand.

Modify a Standard Servo

Using a standard servo (I used a Futaba S3003) to power the rotation of the monitor seemed to work. But, I considered that the torque required to move larger monitors would be too great for a standard service to safely manage. Because of this fact, it was necessary to modify the servo's internal to allow for continuous rotation. With continuous rotation achievable, a gearing ratio could be applied to increase the torque output of the servo, which would allow it to turn larger screens.

Step 1: Open the servo and melt the "stopper" on the spline gear (this is the gear that you can see rotating on the outside of the servo).

Step 2: Remove the potentiometer from on the board and solder three male-male wires of different colors in its place. Make sure to know which color is attached to each hole.

Step 3: Cut a hole in the side of the servo case to allow the added wires to come out, and put the wires through them.

Step 4: Solder the three added wires to the potentiometer in the opposite way that it was attached to the board. The signal wire is the same, but the ground and power voltages are switched because the plate spins the opposite direction of the servo due to a gearing interaction.

Step 5: Close the now modified servo.

Step 6: Attach the spline gear ordered from www.servocity.com to the spline of the Futaba standard servo. It is important to note that a Futaba standard servo has 25 spline teeth (these are the small ones on the inside of the central hole) while other brands may have 24. A spline gear will not be compatible with a servo if it has a different number of spline teeth so use caution in your purchases.

Assemble the TV Stand

The parts were made using 3D printed PLA.

Step 1: Take the four M5X30 bolts and assemble the eight nylon washers and 4 wheels on them to make four separate wheel hubs.

Step 2: Place each wheel hub in the baseClamp printed parts.

Step 3: Attach the potentiometerAdapter with the modified servo potentiometer in it to the plain bore gear with hub, and place the gear with the hub in the hole on the turnTable.

Step 4: Pace the standard servo in the basePlate part in the designated cutout near the center and the potentiometer on the axis of rotation. Make sure the spline gear does not hit the ribs on the turnTable.

Step 5: Attach the baseStand, baseClamp, and baseStandMagnet parts to the basePlate using super glue.

Step 6: Place the Walabot magnet into the baseStandMagnet part, and allow the Walabot to magnetically adhere to the full assembly.

Step 7: Place the turnTable on top of the assembly with the monitor on top. Be sure to check there is meshing between the gear of the servo and of the turnTable.

Wire the System

To connect the physical assembly to the electrical components of the tracking TV stand, use the following instructions and the diagram in schematics:

Step 1: Solder lead wires from the ground and power plates on the battery supply. There are two wires coming from the ground plate and one from the power plate. One wire from the ground plate attaches to the ground wire of the servo and the other is on the ground pin (top row third from the left) of the Raspberry Pi. The power lead wire attaches to the power of the servo.

Step 2: Attach the signal wire of the servo to pin to the top row sixth from the left (two pins between ground and this attachment pin) of the Raspberry Pi.

Step 3: Power the Raspberry Pi with a 700mA outlet plugin with a USB male end (phone charger) into the Raspberry Pi.

Step 4: Power the Walabot with the powered USB hub.

Program the Electronics

The Raspberry Pi has python support built into it, and the Walabot API is in python.

Step 1: Download and install the Walabot API for Raspberry Pi from the Walabot website. https://walabot.com/getting-started

Step 2: Install the wiringPi library from GitHub. http://wiringpi.com/download-and-install/

Step 3: Configure the Raspberry Pi to run without a display. Open terminal and type

sudo raspi-config

Use the arrow keys to navigate to Boot Options, press enter. Press enter on Desktop / CLI. Select Console Autologin, press enter. Press tab 2x, then enter to Finish. Select No when asked to reboot now.

Step 4: Download the trackingTV python script using this command.

wget https://www.hackster.io/code_files/114839/download -O trackingTV.py

Step 5: Modify the /etc/profile file to run the script on boot.

sudo nano /etc/profile

Scroll to the end of the file and add this on a new line.

sudo python

Press ctrl+x, then y, then enter to exit the file and save it.

Step 6: Now that everything is configured reboot the Raspberry Pi.

sudo reboot

Demonstration

Schematics

File missing, please reupload.

Code

trackingTV.py

from imp import load_source
import wiringpi
import math
import time

servo = 1                   # The pin the servo signal wire is connected to
totalDegrees = 130          # Range of the servo +-(130/2)

lastAveragePosition = 0     # Previous average position of targets from Walabot
lastMoveTime = time.time()  # When the servo was moved last
minimumAverageDelta = 10    # Amount of degrees required for servo to move
maximumStillTime = 10       # Maximum amount of time servo will be still for
servoSpeed = 20             # Speed of servo in degrees/second (only tells servo when to turn off after setting position)

turntableAxisOffset = 10    # cm's of space between axis of turntable and Walabot origin point
                            # Allows angles to be calculated for direct aiming of turntable

# Sets up the servo pin with wiringpi library

def startServo():
    wiringpi.pinMode(servo, wiringpi.PWM_OUTPUT)
    wiringpi.pwmSetMode(wiringpi.PWM_MODE_MS)
    wiringpi.pwmSetClock(384)
    wiringpi.pwmSetRange(1000)

# Sets the position of the servo (degrees)

def setServo(deg):
    value = deg / totalDegrees / 2 + 0.5
    wiringpi.pwmWrite(servo, int(123.6 * (value) + 14 * (1 - value)))

# Stops the servo from moving

def stopServo():
    wiringpi.pwmWrite(servo, 0)
    wiringpi.pinMode(servo, 0)

# Connect to the Walabot, if failed wait and try again

def connect():
    while True:
        try:
            bot.ConnectAny()
        except bot.WalabotError as err:
            time.sleep(1)
        else:
            print("Connected")
            return

# Setup Walabot profile and scanning area

def setup():
    bot.SetProfile(bot.PROF_SENSOR)
    bot.SetArenaR(10, 300, 2)
    bot.SetArenaTheta(-1, 1, 1)
    bot.SetArenaPhi(-40, 40, 2)
    bot.SetThreshold(60)
    bot.SetDynamicImageFilter(bot.FILTER_TYPE_NONE)
    print("Configured")

# Begin Walabot calibration

def calibrate():
    bot.Start()
    bot.StartCalibration()
    print("Calibrating")
    while bot.GetStatus()[0] == bot.STATUS_CALIBRATING:
        bot.Trigger()
    print("Ready")

# Disconnect Walabot

def disconnect():
    bot.Stop()
    bot.Disconnect()
    print("Disconnected")

# Main function
# Scans for targets
# Averages position
# Moves servo to position

def function():
    global lastAveragePosition, lastMoveTime

    # Get targets from Walabot
    
    bot.Trigger()
    targets = bot.GetSensorTargets()
    average = 0
    count = len(targets)

    # Find average position of all targets
    
    for target in targets:
        angle = math.degrees(math.atan(target.yPosCm / (target.zPosCm + turntableAxisOffset)))
        average += angle

    # If any targets found, determine if should move the servo
    
    if count != 0:
        average /= count
        delta = abs(average - lastAveragePosition)

        # Only move servo if targets moved at least minimumAverageDelta degrees
        # Or it has been >= maximumStillTime since the last servo move

        if delta >= minimumAverageDelta or time.time() - lastMoveTime >= maximumStillTime:
            print("Move: " + str(average) + "\n")
            lastMoveTime = time.time()
            startServo()
            setServo(average)
            time.sleep(delta / servoSpeed)
            stopServo()
        lastAveragePosition = average

# Main code start
# Setup Walabot library

bot = load_source("WalabotAPI", "/usr/share/walabot/python/WalabotAPI.py")
bot.Init()
bot.SetSettingsFolder()

# The Walabot setup process

connect()
setup()
calibrate()

# Setup WiringPi library and servo

wiringpi.wiringPiSetup()
startServo()

# Make sure turntable starts at 0 degree position

setServo(0)
time.sleep(2)
stopServo()

# Main loop execute main function repeatedly

try:
    while True:
        function()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    stopServo()
    disconnect()

Credits

Scott Mendenhall

3 projects • 8 followers

Mechanical Engineering Student at UNC Charlotte

Comments

Awards

Best of United States

Walabot - Power to the Makers

Tracking TV Stand

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

The Idea

Description

Use

The Project

Demonstration

Custom parts and enclosures

basePlate

baseClamp

baseStand

baseStandMagnet

potentiometerAdapter

turnTable

Schematics

Diagram

Code

trackingTV.py

Credits

Scott Mendenhall

Comments

Awards

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Tracking TV Stand

Tracking TV Stand

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

The Idea

Description

Use

The Project

Demonstration

Custom parts and enclosures

basePlate

baseClamp

baseStand

baseStandMagnet

potentiometerAdapter

turnTable

Schematics

Diagram

Code

trackingTV.py

Credits

Scott Mendenhall

Comments

Awards

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