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Track an object through 360 degrees

I would like some advise as to where to start with this idea.

I would like to be able to track the movements of a person running about in an enclosed area and rotate an object so that it is constantly facing them.

An example would be a torch mounted on a turntable - as the person ran about, the torch would always be shining on them.

Requirements are as follows:

The area can measure up to 60 meters x 30 meters. The tracking device could be placed in the middle or on one side of the area. The person would be running about and changing direction. The tracking device needs to be able to be used indoors and outdoors (in both artificial and natural light). If used indoors, the room would have corrugated metal sides. The person can jump so the height off the ground may change by 2 meters (although I am not interested in tracking the height off the ground). It is quite feasible to mount a small lightweight object on the person to be tracked. There will be other movement in the area other than that of the object I wish to track.

I'm unsure as to where to even start with this so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

James.

Reply to
James
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The easiest way may be to track your runner thermally, much like a Sidewinder Missle tracks an aircraft.

Also, there are commercially available electric carts that carry a golf bag, and these home in -- actually steer themselves -- so as to stay a given distance behind whomever is carrying the radio homing signal. If the automatic direction finder on the cart can home on the transmitter, so also can it be be used to home in on your runner.

Finally, aircraft have radio direction finders, arranged such that a needle in the airplane points towards whatever transmitter it's tuned to. It's not a big step to use the signal to servo your device so that it's tracking the runner.

Tell us more about the specifics, and someone will probably steer you (no pun intended) to a commercail device that will work for you without much modification

Reply to
tony

The thermal tracking is a good idea, radio might work too. I once had to track trucks (as in Tractor-Trailer Semi's) around an oval test track so that we could transmit data seamlessly with a braodband RF modem. The RF modem was somewhat directional and would get too many errors if it was not facing the target. We used an infrared transmitter/receiver set with 3 beams on the heads in a horizontal row. The system looked for all 3 beams to be satisfied. As the target moved out of the right or left edge beam, we rotated the sender in that direction to re-establish 3 beams. with a little tweaking we were able to track the trucks at 70MPH around the test track. I don't know if that could be adapted to a human though, the trucks stayed at the same height fairly well.

Another idea would be to use a Machine Vision system, the kind used to track objects in a manufacturing environment. The can b3e "trained" to recognize and track a particular shape or pattern. Just put that on your target and come up with a method of aiming the sensor to follow it.

Good luck.

Reply to
Bob

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