4 ms·

The dog door one is of interest to me. I've noodled over that one a bit at times. How do you propose to identify when your dog is in proximity? I've got a Labr

The dog door one is of interest to me. I've noodled over that one a bit at times. How do you propose to identify when your dog is in proximity? I've got a Labrador and two cats, so the size differential was such that I was thinking I could probably get away with an ultrasonic distance sensor. Other possibilities would be a pressure mat (dog is 37kg) or RFID although I never found a suitable RFID solution that had sufficient range. I also plan on using a car door lock actuator[1] instead of a more conventional solenoid as it can be left in either open or closed position "at rest" without needing a voltage constantly applied. [1] https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock-actuator/p/LR8813 https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock-actuator/p/LR8813

Ididntdothis 7y ago
I hope to do something with PIR Sensors and then image recognition. This would also be useful for my trail camera idea. Maybe I am totally off but I hope with two or more sensors with small field of view that all have to trigger I can reduce false detects. Once they have triggers then fire off image recognition to see the dog. No idea if that will work :(
- exikyut 7y ago
  Hmm. I thought about this for a minute, it's a good question. First of all I realized that audio processing is at a really awesome point right now: you could train a system to capture your dog's voiceprint when it barks! I suspect that would be sufficiently unique to only match your own dog in your neighborhood. But this could be attacked by recording the barks and playing them back, means your dog is making noise every time it wants to be let in, and also depends on the dog learning new tricks ;) Then I wondered about GPS tracking, then realized that would be stupid since this doesn't require absolute positioning. So then I thought about Bluetooth LE. I think this is reasonably short-range(?). Then I thought about those tiny 2.4GHz 2Mbps radio modules you can get on eBay, and fiddling with one of those to set the output power weak enough so it only works when really close. But that might be so close to "not transmitting at all" it might be very flaky. But the above 3 ideas all require battery replacement in a collar. Image recognition does sound like the way to go. One thought that does come to mind though - capturing a wide view of the environment and requiring both "dog within small perimeter around dog door" AND "empty environment with no additional objects in it", for additional security (especially if the dog door is positioned such that it's not too hard to reach up through the hole to the doorhandle). Some tweaking would probably be needed to make the system resilient to birds and objects moved around the environment.
rgovostes 7y ago
I have a cat door that reads the cat's microchip before letting her in. The brand is SureFlap. You could probably find out about the antennas they are using through FCC filings: https://fccid.io/XO9 https://fccid.io/XO9

Ididntdothis 7y ago

I hope to do something with PIR Sensors and then image recognition. This would also be useful for my trail camera idea. Maybe I am totally off but I hope with two or more sensors with small field of view that all have to trigger I can reduce false detects. Once they have triggers then fire off image recognition to see the dog. No idea if that will work :(

exikyut 7y ago
Hmm. I thought about this for a minute, it's a good question. First of all I realized that audio processing is at a really awesome point right now: you could train a system to capture your dog's voiceprint when it barks! I suspect that would be sufficiently unique to only match your own dog in your neighborhood. But this could be attacked by recording the barks and playing them back, means your dog is making noise every time it wants to be let in, and also depends on the dog learning new tricks ;) Then I wondered about GPS tracking, then realized that would be stupid since this doesn't require absolute positioning. So then I thought about Bluetooth LE. I think this is reasonably short-range(?). Then I thought about those tiny 2.4GHz 2Mbps radio modules you can get on eBay, and fiddling with one of those to set the output power weak enough so it only works when really close. But that might be so close to "not transmitting at all" it might be very flaky. But the above 3 ideas all require battery replacement in a collar. Image recognition does sound like the way to go. One thought that does come to mind though - capturing a wide view of the environment and requiring both "dog within small perimeter around dog door" AND "empty environment with no additional objects in it", for additional security (especially if the dog door is positioned such that it's not too hard to reach up through the hole to the doorhandle). Some tweaking would probably be needed to make the system resilient to birds and objects moved around the environment.

rgovostes 7y ago

I have a cat door that reads the cat's microchip before letting her in. The brand is SureFlap. You could probably find out about the antennas they are using through FCC filings: https://fccid.io/XO9 https://fccid.io/XO9