The high profile of SUVs and other large vehicles presents a dangerous blind-spot to their drivers when backing up. David Vescovi's 2nd-place entry in the Summer 2006 Windows CE Shared Source Contest aims to help avoid rear-end accidents, both minor and catastrophic, using a rear-mounted webcam.



(Click here for larger view of the toddler cam in action)

"In the US, over 100 children were backed over and killed in 2005 ... often by a larger vehicle such as a van, SUV or pickup truck," said Janette E. Fennell, founder of Kids and Cars, as quoted in Vescovi's paper about his project.

According to Vescovi, a number of solutions have been proposed to increase awareness of objects behind vehicles, including:

• Modified mirrors
  
• Ranging sensors (radar)
  
• Cameras
  

Several high-end vehicles, such as Cadillac's SUV already offer one or more of these as options, but these approaches typically add several hundred dollars of manufacturing cost. In contrast, Vescovi's "Rear View Toddler Cam" (RVTC) project addresses the problem using a combination of off-the-shelf hardware and software -- a low-cost webcam, a tiny single-board computer (SBC), a Windows Mobile PDA, Windows CE, and various shared source software -- plus, some of Vescovi's own software magic.


The webcam attaches to the top of the rear window
The RVTC utilizes a Logitech QuickCam Pro 5000 web camera mounted on the rear of the vehicle as the sensing device. The webcam interfaces to a small Gumstix embedded computer, which is located in the rear of the vehicle. The embedded computer runs Windows CE 5.0, along with a shared source USB webcam driver and other necessary software.

Driver's-eye view of what's behind the vehicle

The rear-end embedded computer communicates wirelessly via Bluetooth with a Sprint PPC-6700 Pocket PC phone that is located up front in view of the driver, and which serves as the display device. The PPC-6700 runs Windows Mobile 5.0, so both ends of the system -- sensor control, and display device -- are running variants of Windows CE.

Using the RVTC, the driver can easily view what's behind the SUV on the phone's display, prior to shifting the vehicle into reverse and backing up. The phone sends a command via Bluetooth to the RVTC box, telling it to snap a still image from the webcam and upload it to the phone.

Electronics

The basic RVTC electronics consists of:

• Gumstix SBC with a 400 MHz Intel PXA255 processor with extended flash memory and Bluetooth
  
• CFStix -- Compact Flash support only
  
• NetCF -- Compact Flash and Ethernet support
  
• Breakout-gs -- breakout board

The last two items are only needed for development and are not present in the final version.


Components of the RVTC awaiting assembly
Software

"By far the most challenging aspect of this project was the software," according to Vescovi. Here is his outline of what the software development process required:

• Modify the base Gumstix BSP to support the additional hardware including;
  • Retargeting the WebCam driver for ARMV4I support
    
  • Porting the USB host driver from PPC to CE 5.0 Gumstix support
• Develop a custom headless Windows CE 5.0 operating system integrating:
  
  • Modified drivers
    
  • Webcam managed wrapper support
    
  • Bluetooth managed wrapper support
    
  • OBEX server support (not used)
• Develop an embedded C# managed application capable of:
  • Listening for trigger, connect, disconnect etc. commands from the PPC client
    
  • Capturing a still image from the USB camera
    
  • Uploading the captured image to the PPC client
    
  • Managing the Bluetooth connection.
• Develop C# managed Windows Mobile client application capable of:
  • Connecting to the Gumstix server via Bluetooth
    
  • Sending commands over Bluetooth
    
  • Receiving the still image via the Bluetooth connection.
    
  • Managing the Bluetooth connection.
    
  • Displaying the image to the user"

Vescovi's whitepaper explains: "On the PPC client side, the executable (whatsbehindme.exe) can be packaged up into an easily installable "cab" application. After installation the application can be associated with any of the buttons on the phone to serve as a "Quick launch" feature button."

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This Project's Whitepaper and Video

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Click on these two links to download this project's complete whitepaper and project video:

• Rear-View Toddler Cam whitepaper (2 MB pdf file)
  
  
• Rear-View Toddler Cam video (23 MB wmv file)
  

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This Project's Code

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Portions of this project's code are available here.

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About the Contestant

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David Vescovi currently works as an embedded system engineer for Baxter HealthCare Inc. in Pinellas Park, Florida, where he helps develop in-home medical dialysis devices. He has worked as a software developer (C, C++, C#) for over 25 years.

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About the Summer 2006 Windows CE Shared Source Contest

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The first-ever Windows CE Shared Source Contest, co-sponsored by Microsoft's Mobile and Embedded Devices (MED) group and WindowsForDevices.com, ran from May 23 through July 28, 2006. Contest participants were challenged to create cool, practical projects combining Windows CE 5.0 along with either or both of two Shared Source components -- the Windows CE WebCam driver and/or the Windows CE DVR engine. Prizes included Xbox 360 game consoles and other goodies.

Further details about the contest -- including the complete list of winners, the prizes awarded, and the list of judges -- are available here:

Windows CE Shared Source Contest winners announced

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Related Stories

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• Windows CE webcam driver released as Shared Source
  
• Articles explain Windows CE platform, driver, app development
  
• Video demo's Windows CE Platform Builder
  
• Streamlining development for customized embedded devices
  
• How to develop and test device drivers in Windows CE 5.0
  
• Tool helps generate Windows CE device drivers
  
• Tool simplifies creation of Windows CE 5.0 device drivers
  
• HOT TOPIC: Shared source
  
• Microsoft overhauls, simplifies Shared Source licenses
  
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• Fourteen reasons to use Windows Embedded

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