Student Designed Projects - Camera Control System for Interactive Video Courses

Faced with the challenge of completing several of their lecture courses over distance, three senior electrical engineering majors developed an innovative solution to the problem of how to effectively take notes. Tim Sloane, Kesha Frisby, and Cindy Riley designed a system that would enable a camera image to be sent from the distance learning classroom at University of Maryland, College Park to a web page accessible at Frostburg. Through this web page, the students could control the camera so different parts of the whiteboard could be zoomed in and viewed.

The project began with the students surveying their peers enrolled in the video classes to determine which areas they would like to see improved to get a better view of the whiteboard at College Park. Survey respondents indicated that they would like to be able to view at least one-quarter of the whiteboard at one time, with a minimum frame rate of 15 frames per second. The kinds of camera movements and functions preferred were auto focus and still picture. The number one interface option selected was a joystick control, followed by a mouse look (camera moves with mouse).

The students considered three different design options and ultimately selected the option of using one quality camera with pan/tilt/zoom capabilities that would enable students to view various parts of the classroom. The team then began their work by acquiring a computer to process the camera images and send them to a website. Next a video capture card was acquired and installed in the computer. The students then researched various types of cameras and selected one with pan/zoom/tilt features that could be controlled by the computer through the serial communications port. The computer was set to upload images from the camera to the web page at approximately one-second intervals. The students then developed some virtual instruments using LabVIEW to control the camera remotely over the Internet.

According to the group, one of their biggest challenges was finding a communication cable between the computer and camera which was not available from any retailers so they finally ended up making their own cable. Broadcasting the video was also a problem, due to the constraints imposed by the University’s firewall. Learning to use the LabVIEW software was also challenging, since none of the team members had ever used the program previously.

At the end of the semester, Sloane, Frisby and Riley found that they had accomplished what they set out to do in many ways, but improvements still are needed for a fully developed system. Images were transmitted per the requirements of the project and the students made partial progress in developing the controller. However, the students plan to continue working on the controller and put it on the web page for future students to enhance the design.