575 research outputs found

    Sensor Sleeve: Sensing Affective Gestures

    Full text link
    We describe the use of textile sensors mounted in a garment sleeve to detect affective gestures. The `Sensor Sleeve' is part of a larger project to explore the role of affect in communications. Pressure activated, capacitive and elasto-resistive sensors are investigated and their relative merits reported on. An implemented application is outlined in which a cellphone receives messages derived from the sleeve's sensors using a Bluetooth interface, and relays the signals as text messages to the user's nominated partner

    Detecting, locating and recognising human touches in social robots with contact microphones

    Get PDF
    There are many situations in our daily life where touch gestures during natural human–human interaction take place: meeting people (shaking hands), personal relationships (caresses), moments of celebration or sadness (hugs), etc. Considering that robots are expected to form part of our daily life in the future, they should be endowed with the capacity of recognising these touch gestures and the part of its body that has been touched since the gesture’s meaning may differ. Therefore, this work presents a learning system for both purposes: detect and recognise the type of touch gesture (stroke, tickle, tap and slap) and its localisation. The interpretation of the meaning of the gesture is out of the scope of this paper. Different technologies have been applied to perceive touch by a social robot, commonly using a large number of sensors. Instead, our approach uses 3 contact microphones installed inside some parts of the robot. The audio signals generated when the user touches the robot are sensed by the contact microphones and processed using Machine Learning techniques. We acquired information from sensors installed in two social robots, Maggie and Mini (both developed by the RoboticsLab at the Carlos III University of Madrid), and a real-time version of the whole system has been deployed in the robot Mini. The system allows the robot to sense if it has been touched or not, to recognise the kind of touch gesture, and its approximate location. The main advantage of using contact microphones as touch sensors is that by using just one, it is possible to “cover” a whole solid part of the robot. Besides, the sensors are unaffected by ambient noises, such as human voice, TV, music etc. Nevertheless, the fact of using several contact microphones makes possible that a touch gesture is detected by all of them, and each may recognise a different gesture at the same time. The results show that this system is robust against this phenomenon. Moreover, the accuracy obtained for both robots is about 86%.The research leading to these results has received funding from the projects: ‘‘Robots Sociales para Estimulación Física, Cognitiva y Afectiva de Mayores (ROSES)’’, funded by the Spanish "Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, Spain" and from RoboCity2030-DIH-CM, Madrid Robotics Digital Innovation Hub, S2018/NMT-4331, funded by ‘"Programas de Actividades I+D en la Comunidad de Madrid’" and cofunded by Structural Funds of the EU, Slovak Republic.Publicad

    Sensitive and Makeable Computational Materials for the Creation of Smart Everyday Objects

    Get PDF
    The vision of computational materials is to create smart everyday objects using the materi- als that have sensing and computational capabilities embedded into them. However, today’s development of computational materials is limited because its interfaces (i.e. sensors) are unable to support wide ranges of human interactions , and withstand the fabrication meth- ods of everyday objects (e.g. cutting and assembling). These barriers hinder citizens from creating smart every day objects using computational materials on a large scale. To overcome the barriers, this dissertation presents the approaches to develop compu- tational materials to be 1) sensitive to a wide variety of user interactions, including explicit interactions (e.g. user inputs) and implicit interactions (e.g. user contexts), and 2) makeable against a wide range of fabrication operations, such cutting and assembling. I exemplify the approaches through five research projects on two common materials, textile and wood. For each project, I explore how a material interface can be made to sense user inputs or activities, and how it can be optimized to balance sensitivity and fabrication complexity. I discuss the sensing algorithms and machine learning model to interpret the sensor data as high-level abstraction and interaction. I show the practical applications of developed computational materials. I demonstrate the evaluation study to validate their performance and robustness. In the end of this dissertation, I summarize the contributions of my thesis and discuss future directions for the vision of computational materials

    Automotive gestures recognition based on capacitive sensing

    Get PDF
    Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e ComputadoresDriven by technological advancements, vehicles have steadily increased in sophistication, specially in the way drivers and passengers interact with their vehicles. For example, the BMW 7 series driver-controlled systems, contains over 700 functions. Whereas, it makes easier to navigate streets, talk on phone and more, this may lead to visual distraction, since when paying attention to a task not driving related, the brain focus on that activity. That distraction is, according to studies, the third cause of accidents, only surpassed by speeding and drunk driving. Driver distraction is stressed as the main concern by regulators, in particular, National Highway Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA), which is developing recommended limits for the amount of time a driver needs to spend glancing away from the road to operate in-car features. Diverting attention from driving can be fatal; therefore, automakers have been challenged to design safer and comfortable human-machine interfaces (HMIs) without missing the latest technological achievements. This dissertation aims to mitigate driver distraction by developing a gestural recognition system that allows the user a more comfortable and intuitive experience while driving. The developed system outlines the algorithms to recognize gestures using the capacitive technology.Impulsionados pelos avanços tecnológicos, os automóveis tem de forma continua aumentado em complexidade, sobretudo na forma como os conductores e passageiros interagem com os seus veículos. Por exemplo, os sistemas controlados pelo condutor do BMW série 7 continham mais de 700 funções. Embora, isto facilite a navegação entre locais, falar ao telemóvel entre outros, isso pode levar a uma distração visual, já que ao prestar atenção a uma tarefa não relacionados com a condução, o cérebro se concentra nessa atividade. Essa distração é, de acordo com os estudos, a terceira causa de acidentes, apenas ultrapassada pelo excesso de velocidade e condução embriagada. A distração do condutor é realçada como a principal preocupação dos reguladores, em particular, a National Highway Transportation Safety Agency (NHTSA), que está desenvolvendo os limites recomendados para a quantidade de tempo que um condutor precisa de desviar o olhar da estrada para controlar os sistemas do carro. Desviar a atenção da conducção, pode ser fatal; portanto, os fabricante de automóveis têm sido desafiados a projetar interfaces homemmáquina (HMIs) mais seguras e confortáveis, sem perder as últimas conquistas tecnológicas. Esta dissertação tem como objetivo minimizar a distração do condutor, desenvolvendo um sistema de reconhecimento gestual que permite ao utilizador uma experiência mais confortável e intuitiva ao conduzir. O sistema desenvolvido descreve os algoritmos de reconhecimento de gestos usando a tecnologia capacitiva.It is worth noting that this work has been financially supported by the Portugal Incentive System for Research and Technological Development in scope of the projects in co-promotion number 036265/2013 (HMIExcel 2013-2015), number 002814/2015 (iFACTORY 2015-2018) and number 002797/2015 (INNOVCAR 2015-2018)

    Physical sketching tools and techniques for customized sensate surfaces

    Get PDF
    Sensate surfaces are a promising avenue for enhancing human interaction with digital systems due to their inherent intuitiveness and natural user interface. Recent technological advancements have enabled sensate surfaces to surpass the constraints of conventional touchscreens by integrating them into everyday objects, creating interactive interfaces that can detect various inputs such as touch, pressure, and gestures. This allows for more natural and intuitive control of digital systems. However, prototyping interactive surfaces that are customized to users' requirements using conventional techniques remains technically challenging due to limitations in accommodating complex geometric shapes and varying sizes. Furthermore, it is crucial to consider the context in which customized surfaces are utilized, as relocating them to fabrication labs may lead to the loss of their original design context. Additionally, prototyping high-resolution sensate surfaces presents challenges due to the complex signal processing requirements involved. This thesis investigates the design and fabrication of customized sensate surfaces that meet the diverse requirements of different users and contexts. The research aims to develop novel tools and techniques that overcome the technical limitations of current methods and enable the creation of sensate surfaces that enhance human interaction with digital systems.Sensorische Oberflächen sind aufgrund ihrer inhärenten Intuitivität und natürlichen Benutzeroberfläche ein vielversprechender Ansatz, um die menschliche Interaktionmit digitalen Systemen zu verbessern. Die jüngsten technologischen Fortschritte haben es ermöglicht, dass sensorische Oberflächen die Beschränkungen herkömmlicher Touchscreens überwinden, indem sie in Alltagsgegenstände integriert werden und interaktive Schnittstellen schaffen, die diverse Eingaben wie Berührung, Druck, oder Gesten erkennen können. Dies ermöglicht eine natürlichere und intuitivere Steuerung von digitalen Systemen. Das Prototyping interaktiver Oberflächen, die mit herkömmlichen Techniken an die Bedürfnisse der Nutzer angepasst werden, bleibt jedoch eine technische Herausforderung, da komplexe geometrische Formen und variierende Größen nur begrenzt berücksichtigt werden können. Darüber hinaus ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, den Kontext, in dem diese individuell angepassten Oberflächen verwendet werden, zu berücksichtigen, da eine Verlagerung in Fabrikations-Laboratorien zum Verlust ihres ursprünglichen Designkontextes führen kann. Zudem stellt das Prototyping hochauflösender sensorischer Oberflächen aufgrund der komplexen Anforderungen an die Signalverarbeitung eine Herausforderung dar. Diese Arbeit erforscht dasDesign und die Fabrikation individuell angepasster sensorischer Oberflächen, die den diversen Anforderungen unterschiedlicher Nutzer und Kontexte gerecht werden. Die Forschung zielt darauf ab, neuartigeWerkzeuge und Techniken zu entwickeln, die die technischen Beschränkungen derzeitigerMethoden überwinden und die Erstellung von sensorischen Oberflächen ermöglichen, die die menschliche Interaktion mit digitalen Systemen verbessern

    Enhancing Virtual Reality Interactions with Modular Peripherals

    Get PDF
    Virtual Reality is an immersive and powerful technology which is already changing computing, entertainment, education, and social networking. Modern VR headsets are capable of comfortably delivering high-resolution, high-framerate content and providing fully mobile motion tracking. Consumer VR systems typically consist of a tracked headset and two tracked hand controllers. However, the system format and technology implementation of commercial VR headsets introduce limitations in the user experience. In this project, we identify three specific interaction limitations present in modern VR and devise a hardware solution for each. The three issues we aim to improve are finger presence, two-handed rigid virtual object interactions, and locomotion

    Evaluation of Physical Finger Input Properties for Precise Target Selection

    Get PDF
    The multitouch tabletop display provides a collaborative workspace for multiple users around a table. Users can perform direct and natural multitouch interaction to select target elements using their bare fingers. However, physical size of fingertip varies from one person to another which generally introduces a fat finger problem. Consequently, it creates the imprecise selection of small size target elements during direct multitouch input. In this respect, an attempt is made to evaluate the physical finger input properties i.e. contact area and shape in the context of imprecise selection

    AUGMENTED TOUCH INTERACTIONS WITH FINGER CONTACT SHAPE AND ORIENTATION

    Get PDF
    Touchscreen interactions are far less expressive than the range of touch that human hands are capable of - even considering technologies such as multi-touch and force-sensitive surfaces. Recently, some touchscreens have added the capability to sense the actual contact area of a finger on the touch surface, which provides additional degrees of freedom - the size and shape of the touch, and the finger's orientation. These additional sensory capabilities hold promise for increasing the expressiveness of touch interactions - but little is known about whether users can successfully use the new degrees of freedom. To provide this baseline information, we carried out a study with a finger-contact-sensing touchscreen, and asked participants to produce a range of touches and gestures with different shapes and orientations, with both one and two fingers. We found that people are able to reliably produce two touch shapes and three orientations across a wide range of touches and gestures - a result that was confirmed in another study that used the augmented touches for a screen lock application
    corecore