DESCRIPTION
RETIRED PRODUCT – We’ve stopped stocking this product or it has been retired by the manufacturer and is no longer for sale. This page remains available for its resources and as a source of potential interest.
Pixy CMUcam5 is a smart vision sensor you can quickly “teach” to find objects. It saves you time by only outputting the object data you’re interested in. A multitude of connection options means you can use Pixy with almost any microcontroller. It connects directly to Arduino with the included cable, and fully supports Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black with included software libraries.
Included in the box is mounting hardware to attach Pixy to your robot creation. The firmware, software and hardware are open source, so you can tweak to your heart’s delight. Free tech support is included on the CMUcam wiki!
Pixy uses a hue-based colour filtering algorithm to detect objects. Most of us are familiar with RGB (red, green, and blue) to represent colours. Pixy calculates the hue and saturation of each RGB pixel from the image sensor and uses these as the primary filtering parameters. The hue of an object remains largely unchanged with changes in lighting and exposure. Changes in lighting and exposure can have a frustrating effect on colour filtering algorithms, causing them to break. Pixy’s filtering algorithm is robust when it comes to lighting and exposure changes and significantly better than previous versions of the CMUcam.
Pixy can find literally hundreds of objects at a time and is super fast – processing at 50 frames a second. It uses a connected components algorithm to determine where one object begins and another ends. Pixy then compiles the sizes and locations of each object and reports them through one of its interfaces. Pixy processes an entire 640×400 image frame every 1/50th of a second (20 milliseconds). This means that you get a complete update of all detected objects’ positions every 20 ms. At this rate, tracking the path of falling/bouncing ball is possible (A ball traveling at 30 mph moves less than a foot in 20 ms.).
Note:USB cable not included with the Pixy CMUcam5. The pan/tilt kit can be added to improve the Pixy’s field of vision.
FEATURES
Kit Includes:
- 1 x Pixy CMUcam5
- 1 x connector cable Arduino compatible
- 4 x mounting brackets
- 3 x large screws
- 5 x small screws
- 1 x small black screw
Features:
- Small, fast, easy-to-use, low-cost vision system
- Learns to detect objects that you teach it
- Outputs what it detects 50 times per second
- Connects to Arduino with included cable. Also works with Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone and similar controllers
- All libraries for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc. are provided
- C/C++ and Python are supported
- Communicates via one of several interfaces: SPI, I2C, UART, USB or analog/digital output
- Configuration utility runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux
- All software/firmare is open-source GNU-licensed
- All hardware documentation including schematics, bill of materials, PCB layout, etc. are provided
Specifications:
- Processor: NXP LPC4330, 204 MHz, dual core
- Image sensor: Omnivision OV9715, 1/4″, 1280×800
- Lens field-of-view: 75 degrees horizontal, 47 degrees vertical
- Lens type: standard M12
- Power consumption: 140 mA typical
- Power input: USB input (5V) or unregulated input (6V to 10V)
- RAM: 264K bytes
- Flash: 1M bytes
- Available data outputs: UART serial, SPI, I2C, USB, digital, analog
- Dimensions: 2.1″ x 2.0″ x 1.4″
- Weight: 27 grams
Vision as a Sensor
If you want your robot to perform a task such as picking up an object, chasing a ball, locating a charging station, etc., and you want a single sensor to help accomplish all of these tasks, then vision is your sensor. With the right algorithm, an image sensor can sense or detect practically anything. But there are two drawbacks with image sensors: 1) they output lots of data, and 2) processing this amount of data can overwhelm many processors.
Pixy addresses these problems by pairing a powerful dedicated processor with the image sensor. Pixy processes images from the image sensor and only sends the useful information (e.g. purple dinosaur detected at x=54, y=103) to your microcontroller. And it does this at frame rate (50 Hz). The information is available through one of several interfaces: UART serial, SPI, I2C, USB, or digital/analog output. So your Arduino or other microcontroller can talk easily with Pixy and still have plenty of CPU available for other tasks.
RESOURCES
Pixy CMUcam5 Information:
Quick start guide for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone and other MCU
Quick start guide for Pixy LEGO
Pixy CMUcam5 overview
Pixy CMUcam5 wiki
Resource Downloads:
LPC4300 User Manual
ARMv6-M (Cortex M0)
ARMv7-M (Cortex M4)
Cortex M4 Technical Reference Manual
Cortex M0 Technical Reference Manual
Technical Documents:
CMUcam5 (Pixy) Schematic ver 1.2
Signal spreadsheet
Revision 1.2/1.3 mechanical dimensions
Pan/tilt base drawing
Pan/tilt body drawing
Drill template for mounting Pixy
Pixy 1.3 BOM
Pixy 1.3 Gerbers
Pixy 1.3 Orcad schematic
Pixy 1.3 Order layout
Pixy LEGO Protocol