Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: hdj1011 on February 09, 2014, 11:19:36 PM

Title: need help with a system that measures the movements and reproduces them
Post by: hdj1011 on February 09, 2014, 11:19:36 PM

Greetings,
I am doing a project that requires me to measure the movement of my hand and reproduce the actions accordingly. However, I have little knowledge in this field and I would like to find out more about the knowledge I need to know and devices I will need to get for this idea. I will explain my need in the following part:
I need to hold a device(call it a controller) that measures my hand movement, for simplicity, the movement is only in 2D translation. On the other side, the controlled object (call it a robot) will need to move in the same manner. One analogy will be just like a RC  car: when I use the joystick to control the direction, the car will move accordingly. The difference is that, my project needs not to be wireless-controlled, and a grip is used instead of a joystick to be more intuitive.
To expect more in the future, I would want my robot moves the same distance as my hand. At this stage, I would like to focus on the most basic knowledge I need to know and devices I need to get to do the tranlational copycat movement.

Hope my description is clear to you guys, thanks so much in advance for any help!

Title: Re: need help with a system that measures the movements and reproduces them
Post by: jwatte on February 10, 2014, 06:39:55 PM

If you search around, there are a few projects like that, using one of:
- the Wii Nunchuck controller
- the Microsoft Kinect
- the PS/3 Move controller
I don't recall the specific names of the projects or makers off-hand, but sites like instructables or hackaday or such ought to document some of them.

Title: Re: need help with a system that measures the movements and reproduces them
Post by: hdj1011 on February 12, 2014, 06:23:53 AM

Thanks a lot for your help. I will look into these projects.

Title: Re: need help with a system that measures the movements and reproduces them
Post by: sgang007 on February 12, 2014, 09:50:48 PM

You don't need that much hi-tech technologies for a simple project.

You need a Arduino UNO or any other devlopment board based on a microcontroller. Learn how to take analog input in an Arduino using the ADC pins. Connect a sensor measuring your gestures to the ADC pins and connect a motor driver to any other pin of the microcontroller. Program it so that the MCU reads the data from the analog sensor and redirect it to the motor driver which would reproduce the movements.

Possible choice of sensors:
1. Accelerometer/ Gyro sensor (30-50$)
2. Analog joystick
3. Flex sensor (10-20$)
4. Potentiometer connected to a mechanical assembly (cheapest option)

Title: Re: need help with a system that measures the movements and reproduces them
Post by: hobbes on February 14, 2014, 01:42:34 PM

Since the movement needs to be measured only in 2D you could use a computer mouse.