Dragonfly 3

Mount the camera

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Do you need a USB extension cable?
Depending on the location that will be selected for the computing unit and on the camera built-in USB cable,a good quality USB male-female extension cable might be needed (not longer than 3 meters).

Direction/orientation of the camera

You can point the camera in either of these directions:

  • towards the ceiling (recommended option);
  • forward or backward.

OPTION 1 – Towards the ceiling

This is the best configuration (especially when the ceiling is composed of distinguishable shapes and objects as in the video below). The advantage of this configuration is that the ceiling usually does not change over time making the positioning more robust. Anyway Dragonfly is capable to relocate in an already mapped environment that has then changed by 40% as explained at this link.

OPTION 2 – Forward or backward

This is an alternative configuration to be used ONLY when:

  • the ceiling is NOT composed of distinguishable shapes and objects (e.g. a plain white ceiling) and it is NOT possible to enrich the ceiling with artificial features (like described inside this important support page).
  • or the camera can’t be pointed towards the ceiling (e.g. because you are using a camera already integrated inside an AGV, robot etc..).
Problematic pure YAW rotations of monocular cameras that should not be performed during the mapping phase
Problematic pure YAW rotations of monocular cameras that should not be performed during the mapping phase

The cons of this configuration is that during the mapping phase the camera should not perform pure rotations around itself (called YAW rotations) like shown in the GIF above. Why? Because of some physical constraints, the localization algorithm will get LOST. Despite this the camera can perform rotations around itself in conjunction with translation movements (e.g. like a turning car).

There are no limits for what concerns the pure rotations that are performed after the Mapping phase.

Height of the camera

The camera should be placed at an height that allows it to be free from any obstruction. So, when the camera is pointed:

  • towards the ceiling – then we suggest to place the camera at the maximum height. For example:
    • if the device to be tracked is a forklift then we suggest to place the camera on top of the forklift roof;
    • if the device to be tracked is a small AGV than it would be ideal to have a support that can raise the camera.
  • forward or backward – then there is NO suggested altitude.

In addition to this, regardless of the fact that the camera is pointed forward or towards the ceiling, please keep in mind that ALL the mobile assets that will be tracked thanks to Dragonfly will have to mount the camera at the same height (with a tolerance of +- 20 cm).

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