Why We Switched to a Global Shutter Camera (Arducam EK039) for SUAS
Author: Ebrar Erciyas | PURA UAV Team
When you're building a UAV for the SUAS competition, flight mechanics are only half the battle. If your drone can't "see" properly, you can't complete the mission. Lately, we’ve been working on our payload drop mechanism—specifically, accurately dropping a 330ml water bottle from 30 to 40 meters using a custom parachute. To pull this off, our object detection needs to be spot on. That's why we decided to ditch our old camera and upgrade to the Arducam EK039 5MP OX05B1S RGB-IR Global Shutter Camera.
The Problem with Rolling Shutter
If you've ever recorded a video from a fast-moving drone, you are probably familiar with the "jello effect." Standard rolling shutter cameras scan the image line by line. When the drone vibrates or moves quickly, the image distorts. For our YOLO-based object detection, distorted images mean missed targets. We simply couldn't afford that.
Why We Chose the Arducam EK039
After testing a few options, we went with this specific Arducam evaluation kit for a few practical reasons:
- Global Shutter: This was the main reason for the upgrade. It captures the entire frame at exactly the same time. Even during sudden maneuvers or tricky flight mode transitions, the images fed into our Raspberry Pi 5 stay completely crisp and free of geometry distortion.
- RGB-IR Sensor: Lighting at the competition field isn't something we can control. The RGB-IR sensor helps us get clear data even when we are dealing with harsh shadows or changing sunlight, making our target detection much more reliable outdoors.
- Perfect Fit for Pi 5: We needed hardware that plays nice with our onboard computer. The 5MP resolution is exactly the sweet spot we need—detailed enough to identify ground targets from 40 meters up, but not so heavy that it creates latency or chokes the Raspberry Pi 5.
Integrating this camera alongside our Orange Cube flight controller has already solved a lot of our computer vision headaches. We're getting much cleaner data for our drop mechanism tests now. We'll share more updates as our flight tests continue!