Vision Engineer

Overview

Visual recognition is an important direction for drone intelligence. In this project, you will learn how to use the ESP32-S3 camera interface to implement simple visual recognition functions.

What You’ll Learn

• Camera interface usage
• Image processing basics
• HSV color space
• Target detection algorithms

Materials Needed

Item	Quantity	Notes
Drone with Camera Installed	1	ESP32-S3
Computer	1	With VS Code + ESP-IDF environment
USB Cable	1	For programming
Red Object	1	Such as red ball, red cloth

Step 1: Understand Camera Interface

ESP32-S3 supports DVP camera interface and can connect to OV2640 and other camera modules.

Open the components/drivers/general/camera directory to understand the camera driver code.

Step 2: Read Camera Data

Write code to read the camera’s raw image data and convert the image data to HSV color space.

Step 3: Implement Color Recognition

Write color threshold segmentation algorithm to recognize red objects and calculate the center coordinates of red objects.

void detectRedObject() {
    // Read camera image
    camera_fb_t *fb = esp_camera_fb_get();
    if (!fb) return;

    // Convert to HSV and segment red area
    int red_pixels = 0;
    int center_x = 0, center_y = 0;

    for (int y = 0; y < fb->height; y++) {
        for (int x = 0; x < fb->width; x++) {
            // Pixel color conversion and threshold judgment
            // ...
            if (isRedPixel) {
                red_pixels++;
                center_x += x;
                center_y += y;
            }
        }
    }

    // Calculate center point
    if (red_pixels > 0) {
        center_x /= red_pixels;
        center_y /= red_pixels;
        // Control drone to track red object
        // ...
    }

    esp_camera_fb_return(fb);
}

Step 4: Integrate into Main Program

Call detectRedObject() function in main.c to implement visual tracking functionality.

Step 5: Compile, Flash and Test

Compile and flash the code, power on and test, observe if the drone can recognize and track red objects.

Troubleshooting

Camera cannot initialize

• Check camera connections
• Confirm pin configuration is correct

Recognition not accurate

• Adjust color threshold
• Improve lighting conditions

Achievement

Congratulations! You have implemented the drone’s visual recognition function, which is an important milestone for intelligence!

Next Steps

In the next project, you will learn how to transmit the drone’s flight data back to the computer via Wi-Fi.