Home | Lehre | Videos | Texte | Vorträge | Software | Person | Impressum, Datenschutzerklärung | Blog

What is this about?

• Converting a standard touch panel to a dual-touch panel
• Creating 3D animations from actual arm or leg motion
• 3D animation input by walking with two pens on a graphics tablet
• Determining breath rate and breath volume with a microphone

• Interfaces that are more physical, more touchable for games, music making, ...
• Multimodal interfaces, in particular for handheld devices
• Context-aware computing, for instance for handicapped people

Overview of the technology

Hardware

• Sensors
• Faders and rotary encoders
• Graphics tablets, touch screens, multi-touch devices, (misused?) computer mice
• Inertial sensors (accelerometers and gyroscopes); compass
• Light sensors
• Body signal sensors: temperature, heart rate, skin resistance, EMG, EEG
• Microphones
• Ultrasound sensors
• Theremin
• MIDI keyboards, drum pads, and controller boxes
• Actuators
• Motor faders
• Motors, servos, step motors, muscle wire
• Force feedback, haptic devices
• (Misused?) loudspeakers
• Fans
• LEDs (well, they are not "actors" in a strict sense)
• Computer
• Rarely: a PC or notebook computer or PDA or mobile phone
• Most often: a PC or notebook computer or PDA or mobile phone connected to an embedded computer such as the Arduino
• An embedded computer such as the Arduino or the Apple iPod used as a stand-alone device
• Analog to digital and vice versa
• Standard sensors output (analog) voltages; many actors are controlled by analog voltages
• Switches: no conversion required
• AD and DA Converters: turning voltages into numbers and numbers into voltages
• Pulse Width Modulation: cheap DA conversion
• Amplifiers: raising tiny input signals, boosting the output power
• Digital connections
• Wired: to the serial port (or the USB port mimicking a serial port) of a PC or notebook computer or PDA; rarely to a PC's parallel port
• Wireless Radio: an embedded computer connected to a PC or notebook computer or PDA (or another embedded computer!) via BlueTooth or ZigBee; rarely via WLAN
• Optical: IRDA or simple IR remote control
• Sound?

Software

• Standard Java/C#/... programming on a PC or notebook computer or PDA, talking to the serial port
• Just some simple commands on the Arduino; better do the hard work on the "real" computer
• Algorithms depending on the application: pattern recognition, machine learning, signal processing

In the lab today

• Getting Arduino to run
• Working with solderless prototyping boards
• Reading fader positions
• Controlling servo motors