CMUcam is a new low-cost, low-power sensor for mobile robots. You can use CMUcam to do many different kinds of on-board, real-time vision processing. Because CMUcam uses a serial port, it can be directly interfaced to other low-power processors such as PIC chips.

At 17 frames per second, CMUcam can do the following:

• track the position and size of a colorful or bright object
• measure the RGB or YUV statistics of an image region
• automatically acquire and track the first object it sees
• physically track using a directly connected servo
• dump a complete image over the serial port
• dump a bitmap showing the shape of the tracked object

Using CMUcam, it is easy to make a robot head that swivels around to track an object. You can also build a wheeled robot that chases a ball around, or even chases you around. In the Gallery, you can see pictures and videos of some of the robots we and others have built with CMUcam.