Kyle Housley reverse-engineered the Soonpho M7 Pan Tilt Head and built a custom controller around an ESP32-S3 paired with an NRF24L01 wireless module. The ESP32-S3 receives serial commands from a computer, then transmits to a second NRF24L01 spliced directly into the M7's original controller hardware. The result: precise pan and tilt positioning, smooth vector motion, and triggered shutter release, none of which the stock M7 software supports.
The practical application is aircraft tracking. A YOLO vision model runs on a laptop, detects planes in frame, and feeds coordinates to the ESP32-S3, which moves the M7 to keep the target centered and fires the shutter at the right moment. It is a closed loop between a consumer pan-tilt head, a custom RF bridge, and an off-the-shelf vision model.
The full controller code is on Codeberg. Read the original for the wiring detail on how the NRF24L01 was inserted into the M7's existing controller, which is where the real hardware work lives. The obvious next step is integrating ADS-B positional data to pre-aim the head before the aircraft even enters the frame.
[READ ORIGINAL →]