KR20160071640A - Photo Bot - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a photographing robot to guide tourists to a photo spot and to take a photograph on the photo spot to tourists having insufficient information about a tourist destination. The photographing robot comprises: a driving unit and a steering unit respectively including four wheels to freely move around a tourist destination and a steering apparatus; an operation unit connected on an upper portion of the driving unit and the steering unit, including one DC motor and two servo motors to control camera angles; a sensor unit installed in a front and a rear direction of the driving unit and the steering unit, to prevent crashing to an obstacle; and a communication unit installed in the driving unit and the steering unit, to communicate with a handset of the tourist via WiFi. The photographing robot is able to improve convenience for tourists by taking photographs instead of a person in addition to recommending the photo spot, with the effects of promoting the tourist destination and increasing profits as a new tour and culture content.

Description

Photo Bot

The present invention relates to a photographing operation in a sightseeing spot, and more particularly, to a robot that guides a photograph spot directly to a tourist who does not have much information about the sightseeing spot and photographs the photograph spot.

Photographing at a sightseeing spot, a zoo, or an amusement park is not common. However, there are many people who do not have people around or ask other people to take pictures when they come alone or have traveled alone (because the person taking the picture does not come out). If there are people around you, you can ask someone to take a picture or you can take a picture using a tripod. However, if you do not take the picture after you take it, you will be disappointed. In this project, I would like to make these service robots so that I can easily adjust the pictures that I want more easily at sightseeing places. In addition, we want to let you know the attraction of attractions that you can pass by letting you know the photo spot close to the tourist.

   (A) Graphic User Interface (GUI)

By creating an Android-based application, the user can view the image of the camera. In the User Control Mode, the user can control the operation of the Robot Platform.

   (B) Robot Platform

Robot must travel around sightseeing spots and landmarks before users use Robot. At this time, the robot is designed so that it can travel around the place where there are many tourists, avoiding collision with people. In addition, when the user takes a picture using the robot, the robot designs the camera so that it can operate as the scenario suggested by us.

 (C) Scenario

(1) Scenario 1: Photo Spot

Some tourist attractions and landmarks have scenes representing them. Like the appearance of our Gyeongbokgung Palace in Kunjongjeon, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Big Ben in London. Tourists often take pictures at these places. Photo Spot mode highlights these places on the map, and Robot guides tourists to the place and takes pictures. Robot usually travels around sightseeing spots and landmarks before a photo request for a tourist occurs, patroling Robot for many people. When a tourist takes a QR code of Robot in close proximity to take a picture with the help of Robot, Pairing Robot and user's smartphone. Once the pairing is completed, the user can select the Photo Spot location on the map by selecting Photo Spot function on the App, and the robot moves to the selected Photo Spot location and waits for the photo shoot. At this time, the user can check the composition of the current robot through the app of the smart phone, and the photographing is performed using the smart phone.

(2) Scenario 2: User Control Mode

User Control Mode is a function that reflects the user's personal taste. Since each person has different composition of his or her favorite picture and wants to take a picture differently, it is a function that allows the user to take a picture while moving the robot to a smartphone. The user also checks the composition of the robot and moves the robot according to his / her preference or changes the composition of the camera.

 A driving part including four wheels and a steering device which are disposed on a sightseeing spot and capable of freely moving the sightseeing spot, a steering part, a driving part, and two servo motors and one DC motor, which are coupled to the upper part of the steering part, And a communication unit for communicating with a mobile phone of a tourist via a WiFi provided inside the steering unit. The communication unit communicates with the mobile phone through the WiFi, Photo Bot).

The driver and steering unit can be used to move to a desired spot or receive guidance.

Use the operating section to take pictures of the desired composition.

In the User Control Mode using the sensor unit, it is possible to avoid collision with obstacles and safely guide the photo spot, which is a function of the scenario 1.

It enables real-time streaming using a communication unit to help users take desired pictures.

It does not just help tourists, but it can act as a moving cctv. If you use a specific mascot of a tourist site using the characteristic of a robot, you can make a photo bot that will help you to see the tourist.

The robot will recommend Photo Spot at the sightseeing spot, and will take a picture for the person. It will bring about the effect of publicity of sightseeing spots, the convenience of tourists taking photos, which will lead to increase of tourism income, increase of tourist satisfaction, and increase of tourism competitiveness. In the end, I think it will be able to present new possibilities of new tourism cultural contents.

Fig. 1 is a longitudinal section for determining the composition of the mounted camera.
Fig. 2 is a driving unit and a steering unit installed below the robot in Fig.

Android App

In Robot, the current camera composition is transmitted to the user's smartphone as an image, so that the user can take a picture according to his / her taste through this image. When the user uses the User Control function, it is possible to directly control the steering unit, the driving unit, and the operating unit.

(B) Robot Platform

The Robot Platform should be able to freely travel around sightseeing spots and landmarks, and is basically designed based on a simple design RC CAR. Therefore, it should be designed to control the direction and drive of RC CAR, the height and angle of camera. Accordingly, the Robot Platform is based on the steering unit, the driving unit, and the operating unit, and it is necessary to have a communication unit for the user control mode and the real-time image transmission of the camera, and a sensor unit for recognizing obstacles while driving the robot.

1)

The steering part is the part for turning the robot. In the steering section, the direction is controlled by the servomotor. PWM is used to control the servo motor.

2)

The driving part is necessary for moving the robot. DC motor control is required and PWM control is required.

3)

The operating part is necessary to change the composition of the camera. Control using two or three servomotors is required and PWM control is required.

4)

The sensor part is necessary for the robot to freely patrol when there is no user call. It is possible to recognize obstacles because a conflict between Robot and tourists or various obstacles may occur in a sightseeing area where a lot of tourists are gathered.

5) Location awareness method and path planning

- (Scenario 1: Photo Spot), Robot needs to avoid obstacles while recognizing his / her position and Photo Spot. To solve this problem, four key elements (mapping, path planning, location awareness, obstacle avoidance) are needed.

(1) Mapping

There are three types of mapping methods used in robots: grid map, phase map, and feature map. The grid map divides the environment in which the robot is to be operated into a grid area having a constant resolution, The probability of an obstacle existing within the area is calculated, and if the probability is high, it is regarded as a wall or a free space. Next, the topological map is defined as a node, which is an important point in the robot's running and position recognition, and is defined as a node between the nodes, Express the positional relationship. Finally, the feature map is a map in which the robot records only the positions of feature points necessary for position recognition and mapping in two-dimensional or three-dimensional coordinates. We want to implement location awareness using these three mapping methods.

(2) Path planning

We plan to implement the route planning in a road map based manner. When a map is given about the environment in which the robot is to operate, a road map necessary for setting a route is constructed using the map, and a map is created from the starting point The optimal route to the destination is calculated from the Road Map. The Road Map-based path planning method is divided into two stages: the step of constructing the Road Map and the calculation of the optimal path from the Road Map. The methods of constructing the Road Map include Visibility Graph, Voronoi Diagram and Cell Decomposition There are Dijkstra algorithm and A * algorithm to search the optimal route from a given Road Map.

(3) Location recognition

In order to recognize the location, GPS or sightseeing spot that can receive the latitude and longitude is considered to be the indoor situation with the outdoor but fixed map. Therefore, it is desired to utilize the sensor such as RFID capable of location recognition in such a situation.

(4) Obstacle avoidance

The obstacle avoidance algorithm should use the data of the obstacles identified through the sensor to efficiently avoid obstacles and reach the target point. We will use the Potential Field Method for this purpose. The principle of the electrometer function is a method of setting a point or a unit cell in a space expressed by an orthogonal coordinate system in which a robot exists. This point or unit cell has the repulsive force pushing the robot from the grid in which the obstacle is detected and the degree of the force acting on the robot from the target point. The robot proceeds in the direction of a synthetic vector obtained by synthesizing all the virtual force vectors generated from such points or cells.

4)

It is necessary to change the composition of the camera. As a part that can change the composition of the camera according to the person's taste or the limitation of the shooting conditions, a height and a mechanism capable of rotating up and down and left and right are required, which requires two servo motors and one step motor. Use two servo motors to control the top, bottom, right and left, and control the height using a step motor. The camera also uses the Raspberry Pie Camera Module, which can work with the Raspberry Pie, not the actual camera, for the size of the robot and the completeness of the project.

5)

Camera composition between user's smartphone and Robot is necessary for image transmission and Robot operation in User Control Mode. At present, technologically available communication technologies include Bluetooth, Zigbee, and WiFi. There are important specifications in selecting the technology we need to go through the project. It is about transmission speed. The real-time video shot by the Robot Platform's camera is transmitted to the App on the smartphone and the user decides the composition of the camera through the App on the smartphone. At this time, a large amount of data transmission is expected in transmitting the image of the camera. Therefore, a fast transmission speed is required for smooth image transmission.

101: Operation part servo motor 1 102: Operation part servo motor 2
103: operating part frame 201: driving wheel
202: drive servo motor 3 203: drive tie rod
204: communication antenna antena

Claims (6)

A driving unit disposed at a sightseeing spot and including four wheels and a steering device capable of freely moving the sightseeing spot,
An operating part including a driving part and two servo motors connected to the upper part of the steering part to adjust the composition of the camera and one DC motor,
A sensor unit installed at the front and rear of the driving unit and the steering unit to avoid collision with the obstacle,
A communication unit for communicating with a mobile phone of a tourist via a WiFi provided inside the driving unit and the steering unit;
(Photo Bot) The method according to claim 1,
A photo bot that can be moved to a desired spot or guided using a driving unit and a steering unit, The method according to claim 1,
A photo bot that allows you to take pictures of a desired composition using the operating part. The method according to claim 1,
In the User Control Mode using the sensor unit, Photo Bot can avoid collision with obstacles and safely guide the photo spot, which is a function of Scenario 1, The method according to claim 1,
A photo bot (Photo Bot) that enables real-time streaming using a communication unit to help users take desired pictures, The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5,
If you use a specific mascot of a tourist site using the characteristic of a robot that can act as a moving cctv instead of merely helping the convenience of tourists, a photo bot (Photo Bot)

Images