Hi there,
WoW, that’s a serious undertaking. Did you try to contact Seeed , see if they can accommodate you? they have auto focus unit AFAIK too?
sounds like a cool project too 
Idunno if it matters but I believe the frame rate to be lower on the ESPCam than on say a GroveVision Ai2 or S3 cam. but you probably know a lot more on the subject, I’m a casual user of the camera stuff …LOL 
(messing with auto focus)
good stuff though for sure.
HTH
GL 
PJ 
send Kevin at seed an email… 