XBee Series 1 + Digital Camera

Wireless & IoT
1

Is it possible to live-stream from a standalone camera using an XBee to a computer, where it can be saved?

I’m thinking about building a wireless camera where the images are stored in the camera as well as transmitted live to another XBee, where it is read in to a computer and saved as either a movie or a series of still images.

Anyone work on something like this yet and can offer me some help?

Thanks,

Pranav.

2

Is it possible? Sure anything is possible, the question should be whether it is cost effective.

Xbee’s target is low bandwidth wireless data collection. So you would need to capture an image, store it in memory, and maybe compress it. You could get maybe a few pictures a second, and to do that takes a lot of work.

I’m not a salesman for X-10, but they seem to be always running a special for a wireless camera/receiver for less than $100 (currently $80).

http://www.x10.com/promotions/cameras_d … lpd_w.html

3

Yeah, for low cost, wireless video is best sent in analog form and there are lots of low cost devices that do so

4

Why not get a WiFi (IP) camera? The quality and price has improved a lot.

5

I forgot to mention that it’s over long range… somewhere over a few miles… I need the XBee Pro 900 (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9087) in order to stay safely within range. I would be outside of WiFi range.

I’m building what could be considered a recon plane? Basically, it’ll fly autonomously through a large area, like over my entire campus shooting video the entire way and transmitting it back. If the wireless cuts out for some reason, I still want the video saved to an SDHC card or something so that when the plane flies back, the flight isn’t a loss. The campus Police Department is already hesitant about letting me do it once.

I also need really high quality - along the lines of 10MP - pictures so that I can go back and do the processing I need to for the rest of my project. What I hope to do is to use my current camera, a simple, yet 14MP, point-and-shoot camera with an SDHC slot (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Olympus±+F … Id=2140037), mount it onto an autonomous plane attached somehow so that the SD card saves video/quick succession still images as well as transmit same data to my laptop. I’ll set the camera to video and hit record, the plane will do its thing, and when it comes back, I’ll have the data saved to my laptop AND the SD card.

Is that possible?

Or is there a better way to do this?

Thanks so much for helping!

Pranav

Edit: It doesn’t necessarily have to be video that is live streamed to my computer… even if just a frame of the video gets transmitted once a second (preferably faster, but I’d be happy with 1 Hz). The video can stay on the remote device, and I’ll recover that later.

6

The Xbee module you chose is 9.6Kbits, pretty tough to get high resolution video through that, actually tough for any type of real time video.

What you’re asking to do is non-trivial, not impossible. Military grade UAVs do similar things, but then again they cost in the millions of dollars. For the live feed you probably want to limit the resolution, and then capture real time high res into an SD card.

Look into existing video codec standards like H.264 for available chips that will do the compression for you.

7

viskr:
The Xbee module you chose is 9.6Kbits, pretty tough to get high resolution video through that, actually tough for any type of real time video.

Thanks for the reply. If I dropped down to [this XBee module with 156kbps throughput, would it be easier and faster? And as a side question, the series 1 have 250kbps throughput… is that simply because they’re shorter range?

viskr:
For the live feed you probably want to limit the resolution, and then capture real time high res into an SD card. Look into existing video codec standards like H.264 for available chips that will do the compression for you.

How do you suggest I limit the resolution to the stream while still preserving the full resolution for the SD card? Or should I just call up the camera manufacturer and ask for their help?

Thanks again.

Pranav.](http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9099)

8

this XBee module with 156kbps throughput, would it be easier and faster? And as a side question, the series 1 have 250kbps throughput

Careful when reading those specs. That the NOT the throughput it IS the data rate on the RF link. Due to packet overhead, waiting for a clear channel and ACKs expect a Maximum throughput of less than half the RF data rate.

115.2kBaud continuous on a series 1 XBee can be a challenge.

9

Thanks for the reply. If I dropped down to [this XBee module with 156kbps throughput, would it be easier and faster? And as a side question, the series 1 have 250kbps throughput… is that simply because they’re shorter range?
[/quote]
Start with the camera’s capabilities. Then worry about how to transport digital data.

Again, the most practical way is to use a cheap analog camera with transmitter/receiver.

WiFi camera is good if you can deal with the cost and size and power.](http://www.sparkfun.com/products/9099)

10

I can tell you from experience. I am doing something similar and I have a 640x480 camera which is VGA quality and I can only transmit 1 image per 10 seconds. Having time to take picture, save to SD because of size, and transmit. I was using the Xbee Pro 900 non-XSC. Hope that helps.