90 likes | 241 Views
Final Year Project: Design and Build an alternative input device. Air Mouse Colin Grogan. Design. Air Mouse – Fit on a Glove No discomfort on hand when wearing Tilt of hand causes mouse to move on screen
E N D
Final Year Project:Design and Build an alternative input device Air Mouse Colin Grogan
Design • Air Mouse – Fit on a Glove • No discomfort on hand when wearing • Tilt of hand causes mouse to move on screen • Design system so that angular positions are predefined locations on screen - Unlike the nipple on some keyboards and the Wii remote • Try solve the “Gorilla-Arm” problem
Gorilla Arm • The arm becomes very sore, inaccurate and uncomfortable to use when held up in front of body with no support. • Destroyed mainstream touch screen technologies in the ‘80s. • Problem today with, for e.g. Wii controllers • Design air mouse to be ‘centred’ to any position • This position will be the centre of the screen • Deviations from this ‘centred’ position will cause the mouse to move around the screen • User will define which ever position is comfortable for him/her (could be the users knee, the desk where the mouse would be used normally, hanging beside his side, anywhere really!)
Design Goals • Pass: • Design and build a working air mouse that will move the mouse in real time on the computer • Average • Design and build demo and configuration software on the PC for the air mouse • Good • Design a working gesture recognition algorithm for the mouse • Design a application on the PC so that users can define their own gestures for later use • Very Good • Get LED’s and a Webcam to detect finger positions for more input options to the PC • Exceptional • Get both systems working effectively together
Design Decisions and why • Going to use a Toothpick microcontroller for the device. • Toothpick has a good amount of ports(for accelerometer and buttons) and is coded in C. • I have experience working with Toothpick’s. • Using a Java application on PC to control the mouse pointer. • Have good knowledge of Java and can code efficiently in it. • Using Java to control the mouse means the device will control a Linux machine too. Sun Slogan: “Write once – Run anywhere”
What’s been done so far • The Toothpick successfully transmits results from accelerometer to PC via Bluetooth. • Can use a Java class to move the mouse around the screen • Sadly they don’t work together. No native Bluetooth support in Java • Write my own, use 3rd party software
Things to Do • Get mouse working effectively on the PC • Support for Virtual Serial (RS-232) over Bluetooth • Test accuracy and speed of transmissions – Try improve if not good enough • Design buttons to connect to the Toothpick so user can press a mouse button • Design applications on PC • A demo application to show how to use the mouse quickly and to demonstrate the usefulness of the device • An app that can be used to control settings for use with the mouse – Configuration, Calibration etc. • Design an algorithm for Gesture Recognition • Must reliably detect gestures as they are made by the user • The gestures must be configured by the user to do whatever – Launch a program, perform a keystroke etc. • Research whether it’s feasible to use LED’s to detect finger positions to perform recognisable gestures