Type: Glove Controller
Control: PC Parallel Port
Output: VGA 3D display
Year: 1999
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The purpose of this project is to make a "sensor" glove
which will use potentiometers to measure the angle of each joint of
a human hand. This information is then sent on to the computer
and a 3-D image of the hand mimics the same motion as the human
control is doing. The project was a total success...we were able to
build the sensor glove which controls only the thumb and index finger
thus far. The additional fingers will be added on in the future. The
computer code (written in C and OpenGL) used to control the 3D rendered
hand worked flawlessly. The only minor problem is the conversion
equation of the potentionmeter output to the angle was not fully
correct but it was fairly close. The circuit built consisted of one
ADC0808 analog-to-digital converter (8 channel - only 8 joints in
the finger and thumb together...entire hand would require more A/D's).
The A/D converter is read by the parallel port of a computer and
the opengl code then takes the information to draw the 3D hand
appropriately.
In the near future we hope to build an animatronic version
of the computer rendered hand...i.e. we will build a robotic version.
There are many different types of hand being developed and our idea for
the robotic version is very similar to some. We envision a system of strings
connected to each joint and to servo motors at the other end. The servos
will then pull each joint accordingly. Another possibility is to imbed the
actual servo motor in the finger "link" itself...therefore there is no need
for strings or wires. One site in particular that has movies of various
hand designs is quite worthy to visit:
www.sarcos.hom.
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