TEAM 24: mGloves
Spring 2012
MEMBERS
Costas Akrivoulis
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Victor Dong
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Akash Kulkarni
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Ram Muthiah
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PROJECT CONCEPT and MOTIVATION
Providing a natural way to interface to a computer
Many tasks we carry out on the computer such as using software such as CAD, or photo-editing, or even playing computer games are non-intuitive when we use the mouse. Suppose we want to disassemble or build an engine in CAD. With a mouse, this is done by a series of clicks and drag and drops. If you mess up, it is both frustrating and a waste of time to backtrack.
With mGloves you can have a fluid and intuitive interface to help you with CAD design. You could zoom in, rotate, add and remove parts with hand gestures that are natural and are fast in CAD. You can zoom, crop, rotate, etc. photos with similarly natural hand gestures You can play computer games using all of your hands instead of just your fingers.
A mouse at a distance!
Many people want to perform casual tasks such as browsing the internet, pausing /playing videos, reading pdfs, switching between windows from a distance. The mGloves not only provide this funtionality but also provide a smoother interface for doing so (similar to tablet style swipes).
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
- metamotion-Offers many motion capture devices ranging from gloves all the way to full body suits, using proprietary software and embedded sensors spaced throughout the suit, constructs a detailed models of the hand, torso, body, etc. Prices are upwards of $12k
- animazoo-Released mocapsuit in mid-2011, suit permits full interaction with fps games, quite bulky, has sensors concentrated on hands, shoulders, elbows, and head, also very pricey starting at $2k, however has no lag and is very accurate compared to other devices
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Hardware:
- 6 Flex Sensors + Accelerometer + Gyroscope per hand
- Lightweight Gloves
- Arduino Mini
- Transmitter & Receiver
Software:
- Arduino controller code
- Kinect motion tracking API
- OpenCV, if necessary
Protocols:
REQUIREMENTS
Non Functional
- Need to make gloves lightweight and comfortable - do not want to bog user down with heavy gloves, also user should be able to type with gloves, as they will supplement the keyboard instead of replace it.
- Need to recognize motion accurately - don't want an two actions to be confused with one another.
- Latency should be close to that of a mouse - some applications are time-critical(playing games) and hence the lag should be made as low as possible.
- Software - Needs to be able to interface with software such as CAD, media center, etc.
RISKS & MITIGATION STRATEGIES
- Wireless Communication- Limiting factor to speed of data transfer from gloves to computer, data will potentially be corrupted, more expensive solutions- higher quality transmitter receiver, data speed lost to adding protection to data
- Bulkiness of Gloves- will contain form of wireless transmission, batteries, contrller inhibits fluidity of motion by user
- Loss of speed due to processing data from sensors on glove and kinect - disregard some data, choose to use strictly one source of data between sensors on glove and kinect
TIME LAPSE
PRESENTATIONS & VIDEOS
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