Project description
Systems such as Skycam and Spidercam has revolutionised the viewing experience of sport and their unique perspective have also added to the available tools for the purpose of training. Unfortunately, the costs of such systems are well beyond financial means of smaller entities, particularly sporting organisations that are primarily community funded. Due to technical challenges and the bespoke nature of such solutions this is particularly prominent in the underwater environment. This project will design an underwater camera system capable of following a submerged swimmer in an Olympic size pool for the purpose of broadcast and training. The primary use case for this project is a variant of free diving where a diver swims lengths of a pool while being submerged. This discipline presents unique challenges in developing the technology needed to achieve a viewing perspective of most use in this scenario. This system will live stream a video feed and be able to control the camera via a tether to a shoreside station, which will be placed at the midpoint of the pool. This system is required to have the speed to keep pace with the fastest of swimmers and the acceleration to change directions at the ends of the pool while maintaining alignment with the target. This system is intended to be low cost, using off the shelf components as much as possible, and be able to be maintained and operated by non-technical personnel. To that end, it is envisaged that this system would resemble a 2D version of the spider cam where a neutrally buoyant, hydrodynamically stable pod is moved along the length of the pool via a pulley system. This design will require hydrodynamic and hydrostatic analysis of the camera pod to optimise the camera dynamics, analysis and design of the actuation system to provide the required camera dynamics, and design of the camera system to support control of the camera, including pan, tilt, zoom, and live streaming of the generated video feed to a computer for viewing, recording and/or broadcasting.
Co-supervisors
Jody McKerral (Fisher)
Further information
Freediving Competition: William Trubridge Underwater Glide © 2009 Jayhem / CC BY 2.0 Freediving World Champion William Trubridge during a 150 meter underwater swim at the 2nd Great Camberwell Breath-Hold in London, 31 May 2009.
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