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Connecting Two USB Cameras to the Aerium Nexus

Introduction​

  • In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the process of connecting two USB cameras to the Aerium Nexus USB hub.
  • This guide will help users leverage the power of the Aerium Nexus to expand the capabilities of Aerium Lumen board by adding multiple cameras.

Main Goal​

  • The main goal of this blog is to guide you through the step-by-step process of connecting two USB cameras to the Aerium Nexus. By the end, you'll be able to run both cameras simultaneously, useful for applications such as 3D vision, surveillance, or machine learning tasks that require multiple video feeds.

What You Will Need​

Before we dive into the setup, here’s a list of everything you’ll need to complete this project:

  • Aerium Nexus USB Hub
    The Aerium Nexus, a high-quality hub designed to handle multiple devices with minimal latency and robust data transfer rates. aerium-nexus-top

  • Two USB Cameras
    You can use any two USB webcams or vision sensors, depending on your application. For the purpose of this tutorial, Aerium Vue cameras will be used aerium-nexus-top

  • Aerium lumen carrier board
    The Aerium Lumen Nvidia Jetson carrier board

  • camera-to-hub cable
    A cable connecting the USB hub to camera peripheral. aerium-nexus-top aerium-nexus-top

  • hub-to-host cable
    A cable connecting the USB hub to the host device. The usb type-a connector is not required when using Aerium Lumen

    Note: this cable has the SS lines RX and TX pairs crossed

    aerium-nexus-top

How to Set It Up​

Connect the Aerium Nexus to Your Computer/Jetson System​

  • Begin by connecting the hub-to-host cable to the host port on the Aerium Nexus.
  • Connect the other end of the cable to the USB port on the Aerium Lumen board.

aerium-nexus-top

Attach the USB Cameras to the Aerium Nexus​

  • Take your two USB cameras and plug them into the available ports on the Aerium Nexus board, you can freely choose any port between 1 to 4.

aerium-nexus-top

Check the USB cameras are successfully detected​

  • Once connected, the system should begin recognizing the cameras automatically.
  • You can verify this in your operating system's device manager (Windows), or using lsusb on Linux.

Configure and Test the Cameras​

  • Once both cameras are connected and recognized by the system, use camera software or terminal commands to test them. For Linux users, you can run:
ls /dev/video*
  • On linux, each camera with have two devices on /dev/ section. The first device on the two should be your camera capture device