Share My Creation JG eCatFeeder

Hi all,

Here is my latest creation an AI powered cat feeder :)

JG_eCatFeeder2.jpg


Inside is a 3D printed mechanism with an auger allowing to push out the pellets.
3DPrint.jpg


Here is a picture taken from the bottom side :
a servo (on the bottom right) rotates gears and the auger which is into a PVC pipe.
bottom_view.jpg


That's all for the mechanics :cool:

Now electronics side :
The front face is equiped with a PIR sensor and an android smartphone (screen is dead but the camera works !)
front face.jpg

And finally the other side :
inside.jpg


And now the software :

- The PIR sensor wakes up the ESP8266
- if it's time (NTP connection) to feed the cat, then the ESP8266 sends a firebase notification
- the smartphone is registered to this notification. It wakes up
- a cat detection is launched (THANKS to @JordiCP for his wonderful OpenCV lib and all his help :))
- if it is a cat then the smartphone which has connected to the ESP8266 via UDP, sends a feed notification
- the ESP8266 launches the auger rotation
- and meanwhile the smartphone streams a video of your beloved cat over internet !


Well does it work ?

Yes here is my cat detected with Jordi's software!
MyCat.jpg


And finally a video of the system running :

To be totally honest I must admit that I do have a few false detections of my cat...

[edit] : new version with a balance to weight the food (see post #26)
now the plate "floats" just above the ground !
 

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inakigarm

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Which other kind of animal 'steals' the cats food ? (There's a need of a cat detection system...;))
 

freedom2000

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Haha, you succeeded with it!

Congrats, I really admire your multidisciplinary skills! :)

When dealing with something as important as food, I'm sure that the cat will prefer false positives to no-detections :D

I am an expert of nothing but with a little knowledge of quite a few things :rolleyes:
 

Cableguy

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I think you could avoid a few falses by a timeout, thus the cat would need to stay in front of the camera for a positive until timeout.
 

sorex

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very nice project, freedom.

but what happends when it's time to eat at let's say 9am and you're still in bed and the curtains closed where the machine is?

the pir would detect the cat but the camera won't as it might be too dark. :)

just an extreme situation, I know.

well done.

ps: wouldn't it be easier with just a phone+ioio and pir sensor+servo attached to the ioio board (no need for firebase messages then?) ?
 

freedom2000

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Yes two interesting remarks !

1) I plan to add a LED to handle such extreme situation. Till now the cat can wait for the sun to rize and the software will deliver the pellets a little later !

2) firebase is an issue... This morning I noticed taht my hungry cat does not wait in front of the camera to wait for the notification..; So I have to modify the software to have the android always waiting for a signal coming from the ESP. I believe that I will put a kind of local MQTT server on the smartphone. This will be much faster (<1s) than waiting for the notification (a few seconds...)

And if it is not fast enough, I will probably modify the soft the remove the face recognition (what a pity !)
 

Marko Druskovic

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This is my cat feeder!
B4A & B4R
 

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Cableguy

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How about setting some visual info for the cat? Like a semaphore!
Red- not time to eat, move on!
Yellow - stay still for a moment
Green-eyed here's your food!

Cats do learn!
 

freedom2000

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Yes :)

I do have another option (together with the red semaphore) : add a paddle (mouse shape !) on which the cat should put its paw to trigger feeding !
 
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