Is it possible to connect a usb camera to digix ?

[ltc0060]

Hello guys,

I'm planning to buy a microcontroller for my project. My project is to built a quadcopter which has a live stream video through wifi.
I almost decided to buy digix as the core for my project but I'm wondering if it is possible to use a usb webcam that would connect through usb hub on the digix and be able to stream video to a computer using wifi on the same local network.

In fact, It does not need to be a usb webcam, necessarily. Is there any other solutions for live video streaming using digix ? I know there are some solutions for raspberry pi (it has a camera module) or arduino yun (actually you can connect a usb webcam to yun but the video stream would have latency more than a second or two sometimes , which is undesirable for me.)

Btw keep in mind that I also want to read sensor values from drone and send commands from computer to the drone through wifi as well as video stream from drone to computer.

As a conclusion ;
1 - ) I want to use wifi as a data exchanging unit between the computer and the drone. (not just video stream but also for other related data.)
2 - ) Streaming latency is not important as long as it is not more than half of a second.
3 - ) Video quality doesn't have to be HD

So; knowing the requirements above,I'd like you guys to give me some answers for these questions; should I buy a digix board or should I find some other solution. If the latter is your suggestion, can you tell me a more suited solution for my project. If the former is your sugesstion, can you tell me how to find a camera for digix and send video stream through wifi.

Thank you for your answers

[gogol]

Most people I know, which are working with live streaming, are using full analog devices for that. If you search for "First Person View" or short FPV you will find many resources.
The ATSAM3X8E has no built-in hardware encoders, to support efficient videostreaming.

If you are planning, to use an on-board device for processing the videostream yourself, I would look for boards like the Raspberry Pi, the Udoo (which combines the power from 4 Raspis with one DUE) and others.

[dougal]

Rather than trying to go through the microcontroller, you could use a camera that does its own communication. Like the AI Ball:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AYO96I4/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AYO96I4&linkCode=as2&tag=geekramblings-20&linkId=6NKED4XQJAOQVBAI



This little camera does wifi video streaming all by itself.

[ltc0060]

Ive been searching for 3 days now  . Ive seen the solutions in which full analog devices or discrete wifi cameras are used but it would be the first choice to use the same wifi device for any kind of data exchange for the project. As it seems that Im going to use a mini computer rather than a microcontroller  .

Mini computers have a lot of computational power but usually mini computers such as raspberry pi, udoo, beagle bone or OLinuXino (which I am currently thinking of using)  consumes too much power, which is undesirable for a project that also uses 4 brusless motor .

And there is another catch; with great power comes great complexity (espacially software development gets harder, because I have very little linux experience ). But what I need is a simple solution to transmit data between a computer and the drone over wifi, which does not require to much computational power (other than live streaming, of course  ) therefore buying 60 euro mini computer and camera modules (speaking for Rpi) for this kind of need seems waste of money  .

Also considering that Im trying to build a mini-quadcopter, the weight and the size are important concerns too... 

Thanks for your answers, but do you have another suggestions ?

[gogol]

But what I need is a simple solution to transmit data between a computer and the drone over wifi, which does not require to much computational power (other than live streaming, of course  ) therefore buying 60 euro mini computer and camera modules (speaking for Rpi) for this kind of need seems waste of money  .

You need much more computing power, than you might think:  You need either a cam with integrated DSP with does the complete encoding, giving you compressed movie data or you have to do compression on your own.  Larger ARM CPU have built in functions for that, the DigiX with the SAM3X8E unfortunately not.
When you do the processing and , you have full control over the stream, and you can react immediately on bad connections on the wireless end.  When you are only dispatching precompressed data, you are running into trouble. You need to understand the protocol somehow, that you can decide, which packets need to be dropped, that the remaining packets still deliver something like a usable video without bigger latency.

You can try products like: http://www.adafruit.com/product/397, but you will realize, that integrated solutions, like dougal posted, are much more reliable.

[ltc0060]

Thank you  , finally I decided to use a mini computer. It seems that problems may be overcome more easily.