For the purpose of shooting an object which a cameraman cannot get close to or in a location where a cameraman cannot access, a mobile camera system with caterpillar tracks was developed by utilizing a consumer-use portable HD camera and a model combat vehicle. The vehicle body, camera platform and camera itself are controlled remotely from a maximum distance of 300 meters, while camera picture is transmitted from vehicle body for monitoring. The system is operational for two hours continuously.
Specification
| Vehicle body control(400MHz-band radio transmission) | Forward, backward, spin, and super spin | |
Camera/platform control (2.4GHz-band wireless LAN) |
Camera | Power ON/OFF Recording START/STOP Still picture recording Zoom (speed variable) Auto-focusing ON/OFFBacklight compensation ON/OFF |
| Platform | Pan, tilt (speed variable) External light ON/OFF |
|
| Video transmission | NTSC video, 1.2GHz band(HD video is recorded by internal HDV) | |
| *Maximal transmission distance of control and video signals: 300 meters | ||
Camera controls
Use of PlayStation-2 controller
[Control items]
- Power ON/OFF
- Zoom/Focus
- Auto-Focusing ON/OFF
- Backlight compensation ON/OFF
- Display ON/OFF
- Iris
- Light ON/OFF
[Vehicle controls]
- Easily operated by right and left joysticks moving upward/downward Speed and spin controlled by the joystick angle
- Small LCD for monitoring camera picture transmitted by radio.
Use in a Program
Living nature program “Darwin is Here! － Komodo Dragon” aired on November 12, 2006, from19:30
