The Mechanics of Motion Sensing 119
Dr. Eggman writes, "The AP has a short technology piece on the mechanics that go into the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii and PS3 controllers. It also details some of the past uses of the technology and gives a nice overview of just how far the technology has come from the earliest missile-guidance sensor equipment."
Interesting. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
Freescale has some pretty cool electonmicrographs of their 2-axis and 3-axis accelerometers - www.freescale.com, sensors, accelerometers, and browse around - I can't actually find the images now. I have a PPT on my work laptop, but that's no use. Grab a ZSTAR for <$50, and simply have a play with one yourself - (that includes everything - hardware and development kit).
Re:Interesting. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Thermal accelerometers (Score:2)
Re:Interesting. (Score:4, Informative)
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Or maybe I just misunderstood you..
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Actually - you are only partly right. You still need to calibrate the device in order to determine what magnitude of applied (feedback) force correlates t
No fatigue (Score:3, Interesting)
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SkinnerBox 2k7 (Score:2)
See, I think we should re-incorporate early guidance systems into modern-day game controllers.
I mean, think about it: game controllers with trained pigeons in 'em! That'd take force-feedback to a whole new level!
"Wii-lma! Honey, I'm Home!" (Score:2)
You'll need a speaker-hole so that the birds in the controllers could communicate with the miniature pterodactyl inside the console box that actually pulls the strings and sticks to make the game work.
Guidance system ignorance (Score:2)
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They missed this game system (Score:1)
http://www.globalvr.com/products_ultrapin_intro.h
Re: You missed the point (Score:2, Insightful)
I know where you can BUMP and NUDGE to affect the gameplay... an actual PINBALL game!!!
It's always irked me to see some hand-held P.O.S. that touts "realistic pinball action". (...action ...action ...ction ...tion)
If I want to play pinball, I'll play pinball.
However, if I want to ride a dragon... well I can't really do that now, can I?
THAT is why the new controllers are so incredible; they give a new, visceral edge to creative gaming... rather than try to "come full circle" with a gaming platform t
There is this one worthy video pinball game (Score:1)
Other applications (Score:4, Interesting)
With networking and GIS in a portable device, it's almost necessary to have new interfaces to use all the new space it knows about. In gaming it's the most fun but these types of thing could be used in more professional ways also.
Great Idea (Score:2)
Brilliant!
Then again, it also makes a great set for a horror movie (big arena, psychopath with a real gun, etc, etc *groan*)
Re:Other applications (Score:4, Insightful)
They'll generally give you pretty good readings for a single movement, like 'the object just moved 1 meter forwards', however as soon as you turn or travel a long distance, they suffer from drifting, skidding, and general measurement errors.
A different sort of tech would be needed for mapping. You can do some research into Robotics, such Markov Localization, for some more information. GPS and related techs are better for real time location reporting.
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I guess then all those inertial guidance and navigation systems the military has deployed don't really work then? (Or, IOW, you are incorrect. Considerably.) Accelerometers by themselves can't be used as location devices - but if you use a clock and a computer and int
Re:Other applications (Score:4, Informative)
No the OP was right. It is also true of accelerometers. And the fact that they are measuring data during a dog fight it irrelevant, it is the amount of time/distance they are measuring data. They include a random walk error that is small for a short time/distance, but compounds over time.
You will find that typically this is corrected with something that can give an absolute position (eg GPS). Your absolute positioning device typically also has a know error. The values from both of these are generally married using a Kalman Filter or Extented Kalmna Filter.
I've written code to do this in the past.
I suggest that you also do some. 4 years of Mechatronic Engineering would be good start.
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But yes it does mean robots.
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No [usyd.edu.au]. Click the about Us link at the bottom of the page.
But yes it does mean robots.
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Low-end solid state accelerometers aren't that good. Accuracy is only 1% or so. You can't really get position by integrating them twice; you'll get huge amounts of drift as false velocity builds up. If you have some external reality check, even an odometer, you do much better.
Low-end rate gyros aren't that good either. We did badly in the DARPA Grand Challenge because our heading measurements were about +-3 degrees off, which was enough to mess up the maps being built up from the laser rangefinder.
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The ACFR has for some time had a bit to do with vehicles. The've used a UTE as a testing platform for a while. Most of their work has been to do with industry, mining trucks and straddle carriers. They've done some solid work though
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I've got more than sufficient education on inertial systems...
Clearly not.
Gee, somehow I forgot to look up up 10 years ago, how remiss of me.
Ok I'll make it simple for you, so that with some high school physics and some elementary logic you can understand.
Lets being by assumimg you aren't an idiot and use SI units.
All sensors have some error. So lets take an example. I have a accelerometer, with a 0.1 m/s/s
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Seriously, though, I had no idea "mechatronic engineering" was a discipline. Fascinating...
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Now it is a completely separate degree from the first year. It also needs b
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Very odd (Score:2, Interesting)
The main reasons for this, of course, are obvious. It's not often that your games console needs the same provable failsafes as a weapon of mass destruction and equally it doesn't cost £10m a unit (launch day eBayed PS3 excepted) so replacing it within a short timeframe isn't going to give you a massive budget deficit.
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It's hard to actually say who is ahead or behind, partly because tech in the real world isn't a linear scale (like it is in various games), partly because the military deploys such a wide variety of accelerometers. The ones used in, say the Trident-II's MK6 guidance, are certainly much larger than these (about the size of a film can) and are 'old style' (asymmetrical
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Now that's interesting. Is it the fluid that makes them less sensitive to vibration? (It seems like it would be.) In effect, the fluid would be working as a low-pass filter, so only large movements would be detected.
Does the Wii-mote get around the vibration issue by doing t
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It's partly the fluid, partly the suspension system (the
The "snare" was the first motion-activated weapon? (Score:3, Funny)
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It's freaking awesome. I was sweating after three matches. It takes a while to get used to (hey, the tutorial helped when we finally had the patience to follow it) but once you do, no one who is
Wii Sports - Boxing (Score:1)
Roll your own (Score:3, Informative)
oops! (Score:2, Informative)
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MEMS (Score:5, Informative)
MEMS accelerometers have dropped in price in recent years because there's a big market: the automotive sector. A typical new car needs two accelerometers, one for the traction control system measuring roughly plus-or-minus 2 to 4g, and one for airbag deployment measuring more like 50g.
Two big manufacturers are Analog Devices [analog.com] and ST Microelectronics [st.com], though others exist.
The high demand of the automotive sector has driven prices right down; sensors which would have cost hundreds of dollars in the past can now be purchased in bulk for less than $4. In fact, you could order one right now; component retailers [digikey.com] will sell you one for less than $15.
Is it MEMS ? (Score:1)
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Analog devices make MEMS gyroscopes [analog.com] too. Nintendo could have gone to any vendor, of course.
There's not as much market for gyroscopes as for accelerometers, hence they're more expensive. Sometimes they can be found in car satellite navigation systems as a way of increasing resolution above what GPS can offer - ever heard of a roundabout [google.co.uk]? They're useful there - and there are other applications as well. Games consoles, for instance!
I
Futaba makes them... (Score:2)
For somewhere around $90-120, you can run out today and get yourself a single-axis "Silicon Micro Machine" gyro that's set
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It's likely they work through PID Control, which stands for proportional, integral, derivative. If this is the case, increasing the gain makes the system respond faster, but can make the system less stable. Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has a page on the subject.
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I Can Sense Motion (Score:1)
Oh CNN (Score:4, Insightful)
Axises?? How can you mispluralize one of the most entertaining plurals around? Axes, dammit.
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Who was first? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they meant to say: The Sony controller dumbed down the Wii Remote by excluding the infrared camera.
datasheet (Score:3, Informative)
camera problems (Score:1)
Re:camera problems (Score:5, Informative)
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Can we use this technology with the NES . . . (Score:3, Funny)
Position sensing (Score:1)
Question for Slashdot (Score:2)
Re:Question for Slashdot (Score:4, Informative)
MOD THIS GUY UP (Score:1)
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If you hold them still, then they measure acceleration due to gravity. That is, they "point down," thus measuring tilt.
If you wave them about, then it measures the applied force plus acceleration due to gravity. If you know which way is down, then you can subtract out gravity and just measure the applied force. If you don't, well, then, good luck.
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Hm... but if you're falling, you're accelerating at 1G, thus cancelling out gravitation, aren't you?
Sort of... When you are in a free fall you are being affected by the Earth's gravity, which in your case is 1G. When you stand on the ground, you are still being affected by 1G, but this time you are fighting that pull with your legs. So you are not cancelling out gravity, a freefall just means you have nothing to counter your 1G acceleration/freefall. Even if you leave the planet, gravitational forces still affect you. The really cool thing is that gravity is instantaneous - meaning that it is not a wave t
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Motion sensers in furniture (Score:1)
Well, from an european standpoint (Score:1)
Position sensing with the wiimote (Score:3, Insightful)
wii console, remote and sensor bar (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's another interesting piece of information. According to this source [wordpress.com], the sensor bar is not even communicating with th
Re:I Thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
The biggest roadblock to "adult" Wii entertainment isn't Nintendo but retailers, your EBGames, BestBuys, and Walmarts refuse to carry any "AO" rated titles meaning if a company did release them they'd get very limited to almost non-existent exposure... in the US at least (most of the rest of the world is a bit less prudish).
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It would be brand-name suicide.
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Are you sure that's the roadblock? After all, this stuff is all sold in the same places, and this doesn't seem to affect the other two major platforms...? (Bully does not a trend make?
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Note: the official mag sucks, buy n-Revolution instead.
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Re:no gadget required to detect the direction of (Score:4, Funny)