Wireless cellular control of time-shared robotic web cameras
David H. Abrams, Peter N. Prokopowicz · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2003
We present a novel user-interface and distributed imaging system for controlling robotic web-cameras via a wireless cellular phone. A user scrolls an image canvas to select a new live picture. The cellular phone application (a Java MIDlet) sends a URL request, which encodes the new pan/tilt/optical-zoom of a live picture, to a web-camera server. The user downloads a new live picture centered on the user’s new viewpoint. The web-camera server mediates requests from users, by time-sharing control of the physical robotic hardware. By processing a queue of user requests at different pan/tilt/zoom locations, the server can capture a single photograph for each user. While one user downloads a new live image, the robotic camera moves to capture images and service other independent user requests. The end-to-end system enables each user to independently steer the robotic camera, viewing live snapshot pictures from a cellular phone.