February 29, 2008
Dear forum members,
I hope this is the right place for the following question?
A class mate and I are collaborating on a project for a visualization and prototyping class. We have little experience using an I/O board, and its quite possible that we are overlooking something quite obvious. Would you please take a moment to look over our proposal. Your foresight may help us avoid wasting precious time and money. Thanks!
Our goal is to create a wearable motion capture system. The system will consist of bend sensors for the ankle, knee and hip of both the right and left legs (6 sensors in all). A compass will record heading information. A pressure sensor in each shoe will signal when each step is taken. The whole system will be controlled by an Arduino Diecimila board. We would like to save data to a flash drive. For this we will be using the FTDI Viniculum chip.
The data will be interpreted in MaxScript (a scripting tool found within 3D Studio Max). We will transfer the angles taken from the flex sensors onto a constrained bone structure within 3D Studio Max. Our compass value will determine direction. This information will then be used to visualize a hike through our favorite trail. We realize that there are more exact ways of transcribing absolute position (i.e. GPS) but we are more interested in movement in relation to the body itself.
The parts we are planning to purchase are as follows?
Main Board
1 Arduino USB board (diecimila)
1 ftdi viniculum chip for writing to usb memory?
Suggested here?
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/UsbMemory
Sensors
1 Compass
Compass Module - HMC6352
Suggested by a user here?
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170973485
2 Pressure sensors
Flexiforce Pressure Sensors for detecting when a step is taken?plus the Op-amp circuit for implementing the FSR sensor
http://www.imagesco.com/sensors/force-sensors.html
For the sensor and the circuit
6 Flex sensors
Flex Sensor
http://www.imagesco.com/sensors/flex-sensor.html
Power Supply
We will also need a power supply, but that should be pretty straight forward.
Are we heading down the right path? Are we missing anything crucial from a hardware point of view?
Any suggestions or insights would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Carlo and Don