LASER SHOOTER

What is it?
A LabView-based laser turret designed to detect and pop black balloons using grayscale computer vision and servo motor control. Built with Quanser hardware and a custom webcam tracking system, this turret locks onto targets and fires an infrared laser — no human input needed.

How?
The webcam feeds live grayscale video into LabView. The system scans each frame for regions with the highest black pixel density (our target balloon). Once locked, the system uses servo motors and amplifier control to aim precisely, syncing the X and Y pan-tilt movement to fire the laser when aligned.

Original Idea?
I initially wanted to track and kill mosquitoes in my backyard. Turns out it’s apparently better suited for military drone defense systems — go figure.

Challenges?
Motor calibration was a nightmare. Syncing both axes so they didn’t drift or jitter took tons of manual fine-tuning, PID tweaking, and mechanical redesigns. The LabView vision module wasn’t plug-and-play either — lots of preprocessing and noise filtering to avoid false locks.

What I Learned
This project taught me how to interface real-world sensors and actuators through software, and why real-time control systems can’t rely on “close enough.” I now fully appreciate closed-loop feedback, DAQ latency, and the absolute hell that is LabView debugging.

Hardware Used:
Quanser SRV02 rotary plant
VoltPAQ-X2 amplifier & power supply
Quanser Q8-USB DAQ board
Secondary motor + 3D printed base for tilt
Infrared 4mW laser diode
Webcam for vision tracking